


Two Feet Forward

by Nightsrk



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Drug Withdrawal, Multi, Slow Burn, Vanya Hargreeves-centric, i cut vanya's legs off pre canon thats it thats the fic, reasonably accurate medicine, recovery horror, salty disability fic, tags will crop up as things occur, the fiveya is slowburn i'm just giving y'all a headsup in case its a no go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:49:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 44,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26570131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightsrk/pseuds/Nightsrk
Summary: The nurses say that Vanya is lucky.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 354
Kudos: 656





	1. Prologue: Out of Service

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! So a few things before you read:
> 
> While the prologue starts out pre-canon the chapters are so far closely following season one and will begin to diverge more intensely around chapter four
> 
> This is a salty disability fic. I am disabled, but not an amputee. I have - so many healthy problems. _So many_. Which is what I drew on to write this. That said, if you _are_ an amputee and see any glaring faults let me know. Mostly this is for me to feel like I'm a real person in media though (seriously the understanding of physiology in Umbrella Academy is so bad. Vanya somehow cold turkey quit high dose psychiatric meds in like two days and never suffered withdrawal???) so it's legit salty disability fic.
> 
> Vanya's headspace is not always... pleasant, and she doesn't always think of herself (or anyone else) very kindly. Like I said - I'm disabled. I wanted to write about a disabled character. This includes internalized ableism!
> 
> I do intend for this to become Fiveya eventually! While Five starts out in his child body, he's going to get an adult one eventually never fear. If you have a problem with shipping within the siblings, you may not like this fic. Please moderate your own content <3

The infirmary at the Umbrella Academy smelled like cookies, since Mom was the only nurse in the house. She would bake sweets to soothe even the smallest of hurts. Even though you were hurting and sore, the infirmary was always cheerful. Mom would never allow any one of them to sit and sulk alone in a cold, white room alone.

Not even Vanya.

Hospitals, Vanya has found, smell like ethanol alcohol and lemon cleaner. Even the hotel-like waiting rooms she would sit in while waiting for a flu shot or a quick consult for antibiotics couldn’t escape the bleach-like sterilization that made her nose hurt and fried any life from the buildings. Every hospital - every room in _any_ hospital - smells exactly the same. Ethanol alcohol and lemon cleaner.

It was yet another odd thing to adjust too, when she started having to book her own doctor’s appointments and keep up on her vaccines by herself. The smell is so unpleasant for a place that’s supposed to make people well. Not like Mom, making cookies to cheer them up.

Ethanol alcohol and lemon cleaner. Worse than any sickness caught in the sinuses.

It’s the smell that wakes her. Curling in her dreams, making her think _huh, I don’t feel so good_. Makes her think she should wake up, does she remember how?

Her head is _pounding_ , and her mouth feels like something fluffy curled up and died on her tongue. Tastes worse than that. The dim fluorescents send glass through her temple when she tries to crack open her eyes, and she flinches, settling back on the flat pillow. It smells like bleach, like ethanol alcohol and lemon cleaner. She hurts, and it smells like bleach.

Vanya moans, a crackle of noise. There’s a beeping, loud and flashing white in her aching skull. Her arm itches like something sticky is pasted against the bend of her elbow, and something else is squeezing one of her fingers. Pressure, squeezing around her thigh, around her calf. It hurts.

She thinks _oxygen monitor, heart rate, I.V. port_ , thinks _I don’t feel so good_ , thinks _where’s Mom?_

She’s so tired. Her hips hurt, her back hurts. She’s oddly numb in her chest, and she’s very cold. All the way down to the toes that she can’t really feel. There’s something taped against her mouth, a flat plastic tube forced between her teeth.

It’s so bright. Her nose hurts.

She doesn’t feel so well at all.

\---  
Things make sense in pieces.

One of the nurses tells her she’s lucky to be alive. She says it nicely, professionally. Says _Dr. Greenwood is one of the greats_ , says _we did everything we could_ , says _you aren’t showing any concerning signs of cognitive deficit_ , says _you’re a fighter, Vanya._

Vanya doesn’t really remember what happened. The nurse - who Vanya can’t keep in her minds eye just yet, details sliding from her attention like oil in soapy water - says it’s common. That Vanya has a mild traumatic brain injury, a concussion, some swelling.

It’s hard to organize her thoughts. Memories skip around her skull like a marble in a pinball machine.

She knows she was driving. She knows the roads were slippery, and college students are dumb. She knows that a car full of drunk young people went the wrong way too fast down a one way street and hit her, in her little four door. Vanya was wearing her seat belt. Vanya was going the speed limit. Vanya was doing everything right.

The kids in the other vehicle are fine, the nurse tells her when Vanya asks. Minor injuries. A few broken bones. Vanya tells herself it’s a good thing.

Ideally, a car accordions in on itself and the chassis is only marginally damaged. There’s so much room on the nose for compression, jutting out the way they do. 

She’s lucky to be alive. The jaws of life - she doesn’t remember the firefighters ripping the car apart to pull her out, but the noise of the jaws grinds in her ears, in her bones. They built the nose of her car long, but not long enough.

She remembers talking, though. A bit. Just that it happened. One of the men talked to her. Was it a man? They had a gentle voice. Told her, hey, it’s going to be okay, stay awake. Vanya remembers complaining about Ernst and his love of complicated _pizzicato_ , and how she’s made third chair finally. Like a real musician. She had to talk really loud, over the jaws, and it made her chest hurt, spitting shards of teeth.

They tell her she’s lucky to be alive but she doesn’t feel very lucky. She doesn’t need to remember what happened, her legs crushed under the crumpled dashboard, metal ripping, bones breaking. Broken bits of plastic and metal poking her through, agony radiating up from her lower spine. She doesn’t need to remember it for it to hurt. To know it was bad.

“I don’t feel so good,” Vanya tells the nurse. A nurse. Her nurse?

“Things will make more sense once you’ve had a bit of time,” the nurse says. “You’re still on a lot of medication right now.”

“Right,” says Vanya. “I’m supposed to take medicine for anxiety.”

“Right idea,” the nurse says. “Can you clench your fist for me? And squeeze. Sheryl at the desk called those numbers for you. One of them was out of service. Some… angry sounding manager, I don’t know, answered the other and told us not to call back. Is there anyone else we can try and reach?”

Numbers? Vanya blinks, confused.

“Other hand, Vanya. Squeeze for me. As tight as you can. Any other siblings? Or what about your parents.” 

Parents. Mom. Pogo. 

Dad.

“No,” Vanya says. “No, there’s no one. Just those.”

“Okay. How’s your pain? Had any tingling, phantom limb, anything like that? How about your spine?”

“No,” Vanya says. “Nothing like that.”

Her violin was in the car with her. She’ll need a new one. And a new phone, new clothes, new shoes. New teeth, new legs. New, new, new. It’s not like she died, but so much of her is being cut away.

The paramedics cut her shirt off, cut her pants off. There wasn’t much left of her pants. She’s not sure what happened to her shoes.

Not that she needs shoes anymore. So maybe she doesn’t need new ones, after all.

She needs to call the orchestra, let them know what happened. Make sure she has a job to get back to, to pay for everything. For the hospital, for the drugs. For the wheelchair and the crutches she’s going to need. Physical therapy. Maybe she can apply for disability - but she hasn’t been working all that long.

“I don’t have health insurance,” Vanya tells the grey-speckled ceiling. It’s weird to talk - she’s lucky she only lost two teeth and broke three more. “I was never a part of the Umbrella Academy.”

She’ll never be a part of the Umbrella Academy. There’s nothing special about her at all.

\---

Things Vanya learns, in bits and pieces:

Her favourite nurse’s name. Meghan Williamsburg. Thirty four, been a trauma nurse for twelve.

A lot of long winded medical words that she can’t pronounce properly. It’s the teeth, or maybe the concussion.

How to vomit with bruised ribs. Badly.

Sitting. Moving autonomously in general, with her broken fingers and fractured back and missing legs. She isn’t paralyzed, but she feels it some days.

How to fill time in an empty hospital room when you can’t call anyone who loves you because there isn’t anyone at all to call. 

She’s prone to hallucinations. She talks to the ghost of Five, the only of her siblings to visit, and doesn’t tell Meghan. She can’t decide whether she prefers the madness or the isolation. They’re probably the same thing.

How to pee in a bedpan. Getting the catheter out feels like a milestone, until she learns she’s still not well enough for the toilet.

How to _hate_ the word ‘lucky’.

What a tapering off of morphine is like, when you’ve been in a serious car wreck. For a month, she thinks Klaus might have the right idea after all and that she should call him and ask what is good for pain. Then remembers that Klaus doesn’t have a phone anymore. Neither does she. So it’s moot

The one thing she can’t seem to remember - that doesn’t stay in her brain, that refuses to click - is her legs.

Meghan tells her that Dr. Greenwood was forced to amputate. A call was made. The most important thing, Meghan says, was keeping you alive.

So they amputated both her legs. Left, halfway up her thigh, and right a few inches below her knee. There wasn’t enough to save - bones in too many pieces to bolt together, flesh shredded, flattened, twisted -

Crushed. The nose of her car just wasn’t long enough.

So they amputated. Vanya stares at the uneven shadow of the blanket over her lap, at the temporary prosthetics fitted over her residual limbs, and tells herself she understands.

The problem is - it’s not that _she forgets_. It’s sort of hard to forget. Every time she looks down, or shifts, or thinks about walking, or staircases - her apartment is on the second floor - it makes it impossible to forget.

The problem is, though, is that brains are stupid slabs of meat. And hers keeps looking for her feet.

Phantom limb pain. There’s nothing there to hurt, and Vanya wants to _scream_ because it _hurts_ , all the way down to her not-toes, half remembered.

“At least I have less leg to shave now,” Vanya jokes. She hasn’t shaved her legs since she and Klaus swapped uniforms at fifteen.

“Right?” Meghan grins, and draws more blood, and asks what her pain level is, and asks how she’s doing and if she’s lonely. Her temporary prosthetics are adjusted as the swelling from the amputation goes down.

Slowly, her bruises go from black to to blue to green and yellow. Her pain level goes from ‘I can’t remember your name, or barely even my own’ to ‘excruciating’ to ‘I am so tired, all of the time’. She uses the toilet on her own, and a nurse she doesn’t know has to rescue her because she can’t get back to the wheelchair and Meghan is off for the morning.

She moves from the ICU to a tiny little trauma room to a room with a roommate Vanya tries her best not to speak too. She stops being embarrassed about being naked in front of strangers. There’s no privacy in a hospital.

She stops waiting for Meghan to let her know her siblings called.

\---

Hospitals smell like ethanol alcohol and lemon cleaner. 

Vanya smells it in her sleep. On her skin. In her hair. The worst perfume, settling into her body to stay. She can’t even smell the blood of her incisions through the bleach.

Sharp. Clean.

Vanya lost her blood and bones in this hospital, and it’s all been scrubbed away.

\---

She starts rehab. Meghan doesn’t go with her, because she’s not that kind of nurse. Vanya tells herself it’s a different kind of betrayal, because it is, and makes herself live with it.

Socks and gel packs are fitted to her thigh and calf to adjust for the loss of volume in her residual limbs, and she learns how to care for them. Physical therapy is agonizing. She’s tentatively fitted for definitive prosthetics, which she can’t afford, and isn’t physically ready for yet, anyway.

She’s discharged, and it doesn’t feel real. She wonders if anything will feel real, ever again. The hospital calls a bus for her, a squat white thing with an automated ramp that extends from the back. She sits in her wheelchair, placid and unresisting and she’s taken from the hospital alone.

Vanya sweats through the drive, even though it’s not much like being in a car at all. The bus takes her to a motel, because her apartment doesn’t have a ramp or an elevator.

It doesn’t feel much like going home at all.

\---

She gets her bill.

\---

The orchestra filled her chair. Vanya doesn’t have the money for a violin. Klaus doesn’t have a phone, and he has enough money troubles without her bullshit. Vanya doesn’t know Diego’s number.

She’s not entirely sure he’d pick up for her, anyway.

She calls the Academy, and hangs up on the second ring. Not worth it. Not _fucking_ worth it.

She calls Allison. Her agent picks up, irritated, and Vanya can barely get through a staggered hello before he hangs up on her. She calls again, days later, and Patrick dully informs her that he’ll let Allison know she called.

Allison never calls her back.

She goes to physical therapy. She watches the numbers in her savings account tick down. She does not manage to stand. She thinks about numbers, about her apartment, about her violin, and wheels around the blocks by her hotel until her fingers hurt, staring at the shop displays. Desperate for a distraction, for something to do, something to fix herself with.

There’s a window front of Umbrella Academy comics, her siblings in ink and paper, victorious. Immortal. Unhurt. All the blood on the page belonged to someone else.

Vanya breathes in, and tries not to feel bitter.

The typewriter in the window is the same red as the ink on the comics. It’s more than she can afford. 

But she _is_ bitter. She is angry, and petty, and bitter, and _alone_.

The keystrokes click like bone breaking, like the plexiglass windshield clattering in little shards on the roof of her car as she struggled to free herself. She calls herself _ordinary_ , because she cannot be anything else, and bleeds ink onto crumpled pages.

Her story isn’t very kind. Neither, she thinks, is anything else.

\---

The book pays for the majority of her medical bills. Vanya gets new legs, and she learns how to walk. Again. 

\---

A call was made. The most important thing was keeping herself alive.

\---


	2. You're Ordinary

Vanya Hargreeves is an ordinary woman. Her hair and eyes are brown, her skin is pale, she hasn’t worn a skirt in fourteen years because quite frankly, why would she, and she considers her sworn archenemy to be any stairwell in the entire world.

The elevator in her apartment building has been broken for months. The building manager hasn’t responded to any of the seven emails she has sent. 

The stairwell itself is concrete, with steep, chipped steps and a rickety metal railing that she doesn’t like to lean her weight on. Vanya descends once in the morning to access the greater world and ascends it to return to her second floor apartment once in the evening. Never more than that.

She has a metrocard, which she tops up on the first of every month. She gets groceries at least three times a week from the same grocery store just after four p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, because the bags get too heavy for her to carry if she waits any longer. She’s limited to one hand, her cane clasped firmly in the other, her violin case long since altered with a shoulder strap. It would be helpful if she didn’t have to cart everything up and down two flights of stairs. But she does.

She has six siblings, four of which are still - _five_ of which are still alive, four of which are still around. She hasn’t spoken to any of them in at least six years. Longer, for a few.

She finds out about her father's death on a little tv screen playing the news while walking home. The same way she found out about her sister's baby.

“Huh,” she says. “Dad,” she says. The news channel changes the picture from Dad’s portrait to a shot of him standing behind her siblings in their Umbrella Academy costumes. She isn't in the pictures. She’s never in the pictures.

She purses her lips. She goes home. She climbs the stairs, and doesn’t descend them even after she realizes she’s out of milk.

One day at a time.

\---

“You okay?” the cabbie asks.

Vanya nods stiffly, keeping her eyes closed. Her hand is white-knuckled around the little handle by the window, and she tries to ignore the feeling of the seatbelt against her chest, the motion of the care across the streets.

“Seriously, if you’re going to vomit,” the cabbie says.

“I was in a car accident,” she grinds out from between her clenched teeth. She should have brought her mouthguard. “Amputated my - both my legs. I get nervous in cars.”

The words are bleach in her mouth.

“Oh, shit.” says the cabbie. “Sorry, ma’am. I’ll slow down a bit.”

“Hm,” Vanya swallows heavily. She feels sick. “Thank you.”

The last time Vanya stood before the Umbrella Academy, it was with her back to the door, walking away. This time, she walks toward it, cane folded neatly into her messenger bag, in case she needs it, on feet of polypropylene and titanium.

The doors swing open soundlessly, allowing her into the lobby. It hasn’t changed at all - the same ornate carpet, the twisting chandelier. The tiles, the heavy decorative wood siding. The monthly mortgage payments on this place could probably have paid off her medical debt in one fell swoop.

If there _were_ mortgage payments.

Vanya walks back into her old life, oddly off kilter. She wants her cane, clasped firmly in her right hand, solid and dependable. To feel secure on her feet.

She doesn’t want anyone to know just how _ordinary_ she is, more than that.

She casts her eyes about, eager to get this over with - to figure out where she stands. Mom, in the sitting room, doesn’t so much as twitch when she calls out.

“Vanya?”

Vanya turns back to the stairwell. Allison descends gracefully, each footstep a quick, muted click.

“You’re actually here,” she says. She’s not dressed for a funeral - a blue twist top that shows a sliver of her belly and loose black pants.

Vanya smiles nervously, flexing her fingers on the strap of her bag. Allison draws closer, her face utterly inscrutable.

Then she smiles, and raises her arms to draw Vanya into a hug.

“Oh,” Vanya says, patting Allison on the shoulder. She’s warm. “Okay. It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah,” Allison sighs, pulling back. “You look - nice.”

Vanya has looked less nice, but she’s far from put together. Her coat was scavenged from goodwill four years ago, and her boots are held together by electrical tape. “Thanks,” she says regardless.

“What is she doing here?”

Vanya flinches, Diego appearing out of the sitting room. She hadn’t seen that he was already here.

“She doesn’t belong here,” he says, completely ignoring her as he goes for the stairs. “Not after what she did.”

Vanya cuts her eyes away.

The book was a dick move. Fair’s fair, though. Asshole.

“I’m going to go sit down,” Vanya says, before Allison can say something appropriately catty to Diego. “I’ll leave early, or something. It’s fine.”

“Forget about him,” Allison says, raising a brow. “ _I’m_ glad you’re here.”

Right. Sure.

\---

The living room - one of two or three, depending on if you counted the small leisure room in the east wing - is exactly as cluttered with pointless and interesting to look at momentos as well she was a kid. The bookshelves have changed a bit, Mom must have rearranged the organization scheme, added new books, taken out old ones.

Her book, still in the jacket, sits between two books on parenting and discipline. It is not displayed or framed like the magazines of her siblings, the cover of _Tween Hit_ , an article from a magazine she’s seen laying in piles in waiting rooms for physio and pain management.

The pages are crisp. There’s no oily fingerprints next to her little sharpie message. _Dad, I figured, why not? V_. The spine is unbroken. There’s no signs of use, of reading for leisure or for - interest in his most boring child.

“Welcome home, Miss Vanya.” says Pogo from behind her - everyone has such a flair for the dramatic. It’s like nothing has changed, her siblings using their stealth training to try to tease. Competitions on who can make stupid Number Seven shriek the loudest.

“Pogo,” she says. He has a cane now, clenched between his thick fingers. It’s a sturdy wooden one, more solid than the collapsible piece she uses. 

For one second, she longs to walk over and open her arms for a hug, like Allison did. But the thought of limping over to the one person who might care enough to notice how stiff she’s become makes her queasy, so she sits down in one of the plush chairs instead. “Hey.”

Pogo smiles stiffly. Vanya curls her fingers tighter around her book.

She hurts everyone around her. Everyone in this fucking house.

“Do you know if he ever read it?” she asks, instead of _how are you_ , or _how have things been_ , or _I’m sorry_. The single photograph that had ever been taken of her as a child stares sullenly out from the cover.

“Hmm.” Pogo shakes his head. “Not that I’m aware of.”

Ever the peacekeeper. Never an outright _no_. She looks away, for something less horrible to speak about. At the painting of Five, staring down at them like a spoiled Victorian schoolboy. Pogo clicks his tongue, following her gaze.

“I still leave the lights on for him,” she says. He’s been gone a long time - Pogo would know the exact day, she knows. But it’s been too long for single days to matter. “At my apartment. Make a little snack - those horrible peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches. I can’t believe we used to eat them.”

“Mm, yes I remember.” Pogo agrees, smiling softly. “I think I stepped in half your offerings.”

“Sorry,” Vanya laughs. “You want to know something stupid? It’s not like he knows where my apartment is. I just - I’m scared that he’ll come back, and it’ll be late, and everything will be dark, and he won’t be able to find us. And he’ll leave again. So I keep the lights on.”

Pogo snorts softly, and meets Vanya’s eyes with a warm slant to his brows. “Your father always believed that Number Five was still out there somewhere,” and he says it like a benediction, like _you are not alone_. Like Vanya wants to have anything in common with her father at all. “He never lost hope.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s hope,” Vanya says softly. “More like - a compulsion. I can’t _not_ do these things. And maybe if I do them long enough, he really will come back.”

Pogo’s smile turns strained on the edges of his lips, an awkward creasing of his eyes. Right, she thinks, This house is sterile like ethanol alcohol and lemon cleaner, even if it doesn’t smell as bad. We’re not to say we’re _upset_.

“I’m just gonna,” Vanya pats the chair of her arm. “Wait here, I guess. Was I the last to arrive? I can’t believe I got beat by Luther. It’s a long way for him.”

\---

Vanya clutches her messenger bag tightly to her chest as Luther speaks about a memorial service in Dad’s favourite spot - that no one else knew anything about, of course. She wants to jiggle her knee anxiously, but there’s already a few funny creases in the denim of her jeans around her leg, and she doesn’t want to draw attention to it. So she fucks about with the clasps of her messenger bag, eyeing Klaus as he walks around drinking and smoking, with an open shirt and one of Allison’s skirts on.

She wonders if he has a phone now. If he’d pick up.

Probably not.

Things rapidly devolve, as they’re wont to do in this family. Luther thinks dad was murdered. Vanya can’t be sure if Diego is protesting because he doesn’t think Dad was murdered, or because he wants to pick a fight with Luther. Klaus is Klaus, which Vanya tries to find a hint of comfort in. At least one of them doesn’t care about being useless.

And of course, it was _one of them_ who killed Dad. Of course.

“Do I count as a suspect,” she asks, raising her hand “Or can I leave, because I need to pee.”

\---

A few weeks of peeing through a tube and then into a bedpan really makes you appreciate proper facilities. 

\---

The thunderstorm comes on suddenly and with a flash of blue light through the windows. Vanya glances up from her book, frowning. Her thigh aches at the incision, her one knee groaning with the sudden change in pressure.

“What the fuck,” Deigo snarls, storming past her. Vanya levers herself off the couch, careful not to lose her balance. 

The thunderstorm isn’t a thunderstorm. Vanya is - absurdly grateful her legs are made of a metal that doesn’t react to magnetic activity, watching Diego’s knives slide out of their sheathes towards the. The.

Great blue eye, winking open in the courtyard. Like a black hole, or a whirlpool.

Or like Five, the air rippling around him as he’d wink into her room at midnight, equations on his hands he wanted to proof through with her.

“What is it?” Vanya shouts.

“Don’t get too close,” Allison responds, prompting a derisive snort from Diego.

Vanya can see grass, through the eye. A white picket fence. A man.

“Looks like some sort of temporal anomaly,” Luther shouts, drawing closer to the eye. “Either that or a miniature black hole, one of the two.”

Vanya doesn't know as much about space as Luther does - obviously - but even she knows standing so close to a black hole would be a death sentence.

“Pretty big difference there, Paul Bunyan!” Diego shouts, and yeah, just as Klaus runs forward and throws an entire fire extinguisher in the eye.

None of her siblings seem to be more than nervous, but terror is an old friend to Vanya and she finds it pressing on the inside of her fake teeth like crystals of ice.

The eye winks at them, lightning whining loud and drill like. Luther, huge and imposing, demands everyone get behind him. Diego shoves Vanya behind his shoulder, standing next to Luther with a glare.

It’s not really about protecting her, she knows.

And then -

With a _shriek_ of metal on metal, or maybe air on air, something falls out, and the eye blinks shut for the last time with a _boom_ that makes her ears pop.

And then…

“Does anyone else see,” Klaus starts, lurching forward. “Little Number Five, or is that just me?”

Five, standing before them in an oversized, cheap suit, squints. Frowns, and looks down at himself, hunching his tiny shoulders.

“Shit,” he says.

\---

Five slams a cutting board and knife down on the counter. “What’s the date?” he asks, ignoring Luther’s half hearted attempts at gesturing wildly at him in favour of fetching the bread from the counter. “The _exact_ date.”

“The fourth,” Vanya says.

“Of what?”

“March.” she says. “2019.”

He nods, pressing his lips together. “Good.”

He’s so - weirdly unchanged. The portrait hasn’t been completely accurate - he has softer cheeks, and sterner eyebrows. In the oversized suit, he looks like a child playing dress up with his father’s closet.

If it weren’t for the tension in his shoulders, the way he sidesteps Luther's questions, the absolute ease in which he blinks around the kitchen. Five had been the best of her siblings - had been, when they were thirteen. They’ve improved.

So has he. 

It’s - 

Vanya is ordinary. This is as far from ordinary as things go, her long disappeared brother reappearing, without aging a day.

Except he’s fifty-eight.

She is so - incredibly out of her depth. Not like staring at the parallel bars, and realizing she’s lost something. More like waiting in the ditch, hearing the sirens drawing closer, and looking for the will to wait for them.

“So why now,” Vanya forces herself to ask, Five’s dark, serious gaze settling back on her as he goes through the motions of making - heh - a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich. “It’s been seventeen years for us, and forty five for you. So why now? Why not seventeen years ago.”

“It’s complicated,” he says, and takes a bite. “Delores kept saying the equations were off.”

Vanya starts. “Delores?”

Five waves his hand. “In the end I had to project my consciousness forward into a quantum state version of myself that exists in every possible instance of time.” 

Vanya squints, looking between Five and a baffled Klaus. 

“That makes no sense,” says Diego.

“Well, it would if you were smarter,” says Five, and takes a bite of his sandwich.

“Jesus,” Vanya says, flinching as Diego rockets to his feet, Luther holding him back from throttling Five who still - _still_ \- just looks like a kid playing at responsibility, looking at the newspaper announcing Dad’s death with faint, detached amusement.

Like a disaster in slow motion. Like those aching, endless minutes, where she was trapped in the seat of her overturned car, legs crushed to gravel under the dash. Blood running from her nose and down her forehead, the sound of cars occasionally zipping by on the road above the ditch. Watching the lights trace patterns in the broken glass.

Vanya levers herself out of her chair, abrupt, bracing herself on the stiff back of the chair and the table. All eyes turn to her, and it makes her skin crawl.

“Sorry,” she says, waving them off. “I just - I’m gonna go get some air.”

“Vanya,” Five says, but she waves him off.

\---

She finds Five in his old school uniform standing in the sitting room, staring at his portrait. Old, oversized suit gone somewhere, the uniform fitting the same as it did when he disappeared.

She wonders if this is how Klaus feels, staring at ghosts.

“Nice to know Dad didn’t forget me,” he says. The couch squeaks when Vanya sits on it.

Her back hurts. She’ll need to take her pain meds and do her PT before bed if she doesn’t want her back to cramp up and paralyze her for the next two days. She has practice to go to and lessons to teach and groceries to get.

He turns to her, eyebrows flicking up when he sees her sitting. “Read your book, by the way.” he says. “Found it in a library that was still standing.”

Vanya’s stomach drops to her long-gone feet. She wonders what the hospital did with her legs.

But Five keeps going, sitting on the far end of the couch. “I thought it was pretty good,” he says, his mouth curling into a lopsided grin. “All things considered. Definitely ballsy; giving up the family secrets. Sure that went over well.”

_Oh, Five._

“They hate me,” Vanya tells her hands, clicking and unclicking the latch on the bag.

“Oh, there are worse things that can happen.” Five says.

Vanya snorts. The shattering of glass. The hissing of the hydraulics, the sudden rush of blood to her crushed legs. “Yeah. I know.”

“Yeah,” he crosses his legs. It’s weird - shorts, bare knees. Vanya used to wear a uniform just like it, back after she and Klaus had traded. She’s worn nothing but long pants for over six years. “So, what happened to you?”

Vanya freezes. Her knuckles go white, hands flattening on her bag.

“You’re stiff when you walk,” he continues, raising a brow, eyes skipping across her body. “You used your hands to stand up in the kitchen, and you sat down when you came in here, even though it’s rude to sit while someone who is standing is initiating a conversation.” his eyes meet hers, thinned in suspicion. “Is there something wrong with your knees?”

Heartbeat thudding in her ears, hands curling into fists. Her knee - singular - is about as good as can be expected. It’s the only reason she can walk anywhere without a cane, even for short distances. She’s still not used to the strange tractionlessness of her left leg, the stiff way she has to put her hips into the movement because the joints are all gone.

“It’s nothing,” she forces herself to say, artificially light. Just like talking to Piotr at physical therapy, when she’s trying to get around admitting that she slept in the bath three nights out of seven because her back kept seizing. “I sprained my ankle a few weeks ago.”

She doesn’t have any ankles anymore.

Five’s eyebrow inches higher. “Must have been quite the sprain.” he says, utterly unimpressed at her bullshit.

“Well,” she shrugs. “Could have been worse.” _I could have told you the truth_. 

“Right,” he says, settling in on the couch. In his uniform, it’s like he never left. Like being thirteen again, if it weren’t for the years of mundane toil and excruciating pain resting heavy in her lap. Vanya hasn’t felt like a child in a long time.

“I waited for you,” her voice is high and raw, her gaze trained on her bitten down fingernails. “I left the lights on.”

She still leaves the lights on.

“Yeah,” says Five, creasing his brow. It’s such a serious expression on his childish face. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” the words rattle in her throat as she says them, and she _means them_ , even though she doesn’t really want to. Sometimes, secrets are better kept. “I know it can’t have been - easy for you. Harder than it was for me. I just - ” she sighs. “I’m glad to see you again.”

Five eyes her. His mouth curves up, fishhooked at the corner.

“I’m glad to see you again, too.”

\---

The funeral goes… poorly.

\--- 

Vanya takes one tylenol-3 twice a day, 10 mg cyclobenzaprine as required and only ever before bed, and 300 mg of carbamazepine five times daily. She’s a half hour late by the time she takes them, all three of the little tablets stark in her pale palm. The Academy’s tap water is oddly metallic against the bitterness of the tylenol.

Her cab should be pulling up soon. If she’s lucky, before the cyclobenzaprine takes effect, unknotting the twist of muscle and tendon tightening next to her spine and releasing some of the building pain. 

Pushed herself a bit too hard, isn’t that funny? None of her siblings have ever struggled to simply walk.

(when she had started physical therapy, staring down at the parallel bars and realizing that she didn’t know how her legs worked anymore, she had felt - )

(not ordinary)

(something much worse)

There’s no taxi waiting for her by the time she shuffles up to the lobby, peering blurry-eyed out the rain soaked window. She clicks her tongue, annoyed.

On the hard lobby floor, the tap of Pogo’s cane announces his presence before he could startle her for the second time in a day.

“If you’re going to convince me to stay,” Vanya tells the window. “You’re wasting your time. My taxi is almost here.”

“On the contrary,” Pogo says, unflappable. “I was going to offer you a ride.”

Vanya grins, half turning to raise a brow at him. “I’m sure that would draw a few sideways glances.”

Pogo hums. “It has been quite the day, Miss Vanya.”

“Yeah,” car lights cut across the road. “That’s me. I should,” she jerks her thumb towards the door.

“Of course,” Pogo nods. His fur is greying, his shoulders are slumped. He looks so _old_.

And again, Vanya can’t bring herself to hug him. To lean down on her unsteady legs, and put her arms around him, because he might _notice_.

Fuck, she’s so fucked up. 

“Your father loved you,” he tells her back, quick, like he’s trying not to think better of it. “All of you. In his own way.”

Vanya pauses. Blinks at the door knob in her hand, halfway twisted. And shrugs, pulling it open.

“Yeah, that’s the problem isn’t it?” she tells the rain. She does not say goodbye.

\---

She has the taxi drop her off, breathing hard and shaking, at the grocery store. She’s half caught between panic and the chemically induced stupor of the cyclo’ that still puts her on her ass. However, she’s out of milk again, and Five is back so she’ll need a new jar of peanut butter for sandwich purposes. And marshmallows, also for sandwiches, and maybe for cocoa.

She buys cocoa. It’s a special occasion.

Of course - she could have been hallucinating for the last six hours. It’s happened on a few occasions, since her accident. Her cane is solid in her hand and her head swims with painkillers, not delirium, so she thinks she’s good.

It can be hard to tell, though. Especially since -

Well, Five is back. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s wrong about that.

She limps slowly back to her apartment, already dreading the stairwell. The rapid thunderstorm - the pressure changes caused by Five’s time-travelling (and there’s the evidence she needs to hold on to, that this is all real) have not been kind to her poor legs. At least she has her cane back.

Only, when the door to her flat creaks open, a light flicks on.

“Jesus,” she curses.

“You should put locks on your windows,” Five says, from where he’s sitting in her goddamn armchair like the big bad from a cheesy spy movie. Waiting in the dark for her to get home, the dramatic little shit.

Vanya scowls, hanging her cane on the hook with a sullen clatter. “I live on the second floor.”

“Rapists can climb.”

Vanya snorts. Five has already seen it, but she hangs her scarf on the same hook as the cane to block his view. “Statistically, I’m more likely to be sexually assaulted by a date or the parents of one of my students than someone climbing through my window.”

“Somehow,” Five grimaces, leaning forward. The dim light of her apartment casts odd shadows on his face, more a Victorian ghost here than before his memorial portrait. “I find that the exact _opposite_ of reassuring. Please tell me you carry mace.”

“Yes, mother,” rolling her eyes makes her head swim. She’s tracking dirt inside, wearing her shoes, but there’s no goddamn way she’s going to be able to walk the slick kitchen tiles in sock feet. “I have a canister in my bag. And don’t tell me you used the windows to get in, you’re so full of shit. You want something to drink? I have… cranberry juice and milk.”

“No, thank you.”

It takes Vanya a pill-slow moment to realize that the shadows on Five aren’t shadows, even after she flips on the light. They’re bloodstains.

“Five, holy shit.” she breathes.

Five’s mouth turns down. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he says, the bastard. “Most of it isn’t mine.”

“We - will save that thought for later. Hold still, I’m going to get my first aid kit.”

Vanya helps Five carefully peel off his uniform jacket without bothering his right arm, held at a careful angle. She hisses when she sees the haphazard bandaging job he did, the blood staining the sleeve of his white button down.

“What happened?” she asks, rolling his sleeve back over the deep vertical cut. It’s still weeping blood though his sleeve has already gone stiff at the edges of the stain. “Why did you come here? Mom could have stitched this for you, instead of waiting in the dark.”

Five’s gaze settles heavy on the crown of her head as she laboriously sits on the floor beside the chair, the back of Vanya’s neck prickling. She doesn’t look up from her first aid kit, rifling through for her sterile pads.

“I’ve decided you’re the only one I can trust,” he says, the words simple.

Vanya cracks open her peroxide, breathing carefully through her mouth to avoid the smell. “Why?”

Why not Luther, Number One? Why not Allison, who can convince anyone of anything, or Diego, who’s powerful and quick in a fight.

“Because you’re ordinary,” he says.

Vanya spills too much peroxide on the cotton, getting the foul-smelling antiseptic on her fingers.

Five cocks his head, a shadow of a motion. “Because you’ll listen,” he clarifies, corrects. “Because you think about what words mean, when people say them.”

Vanya nods slowly, swiping the pad around Five’s wound to clean the worst of the blood off. “This might sting,” she warns.

Five ignores her, eyes going cloudy as he loses himself in some over-important memory. “When I jumped forward, into the future, do you know what I found?”

Vanya wipes the cotton carefully over the cut. He doesn’t flinch. “What?”

“Nothing.” he says, and she looks up, blurry-eyed to meet his haunted face. “Absolutely nothing. The world ends in twenty-four days, and I have no idea how to stop it.”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so a couple of changes from canon - It's the fourth of march because seriously, nine days is not long enough for either Vanya or Klaus to detox even if they started on day one.
> 
> Second - that line about the windows? Bugs me. The writers know as little abt sexual assault as they do about medication, apparently
> 
> third - Vanya had a traumatic event! you'll notice shes a little more inclined to fawn and go along with things with people she likes (of which there are... not many), and more inclined to lash out, outright lie, or leave a situation when she's uncomfortable.


	3. Move Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> owo

Pogo taught the kids to drive.

Pogo taught… _most_ of the kids to drive. Klaus, already thoroughly dependent on cannabis and alcohol to get through the days, was pointedly excluded from the lessons.

Vanya was decent at it. She’s short, and most of her diminutive height is in her legs, so she had to crane her neck to see over the hood of the car properly, until she got used to the idea nothing was going to magically crop up in her blind spot as she moved forward.

She had a light foot on the gas, which drove Diego nuts from the backseat, and an over-sensitive sense at caution, staying back from lane entries and street crossings unless she was _absolutely sure_ there were no cars that could feasibly hit her.

She drove like a grandmother, or like her grandmother was in the backseat.

The Road, with capitals, was this slick inclined road with a long straightway and a blind right turn. It was one-way, so Vanya was slightly more comfortable on it than on the busier two-way straight three blocks south with a bit less of an incline, but more three-way stops.

It had rained the day before her accident. The road was icy. Vanya was even more cautious about ascending the straightway than usual, nervous about sliding back on the empty road, but unwilling to risk sliding into an intersection on the two-way.

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how careful you are.

Sometimes, you’re just _unlucky_.

One day at a time. 

\---  
“I would just like to state, for the record, that I am not a doctor,” Vanya says as she winds the gauze around the cut in Five’s arm. “And this is _very_ deep.”

Five snorts, leaning back in Vanya’s chair. His head lolls from side to side as he casts a critical gaze around her apartment. At the railings by the window, her crutches leaning half hidden by the coat rack. “You sure? You’ve got an awful lot of supplies here, sister of mine.”

Vanya presses her lips together. She closes the bottle of peroxide and tips it upside down to ensure it’s sealed.

She can still smell it.

“Need a hand?” Five springs to his feet, like he isn’t still bleeding heavily under a layer of gauze. With a flourish he spins and bows, folding on hand behind the small of his back and extending the other for her to grasp.

Vanya’s mouth twitches against her will. “Seriously?”

“What? Ballroom dancing etiquette saved my ass during the apocalypse, let me tell you.”

Vanya takes his hand in hers, pulling herself to her knee, and braces herself on the chair with her other hand, trying to force herself high enough to get her unfeeling feet under her trunk.

“Oh, shit.” Five laughs. “Hold on,” and he steps forward, shifting their grip so he can support more of her weight, placing his other hand wedged up against her armpit so he can haul her the rest of the way to her feet.

Five is _strong_. He doesn’t even grunt when she staggers trying to get her balance, stumbling into him.

He’s also, the shit, taller than she is. Even with the extra two inches the prosthetist had added.

“Just a sprain, hm?” he drawls, a wretched sort of amusement stretching his mouth into a grin. 

Vanya swallows.

“I saw the wheelchair in your bedroom when I came in. The only piece of furniture that’s been dusted in the last month and a half,” he adds. He’s still holding on her hand, his shifted from her armpit to her flank. “And there’s painkillers left out on your vanity.”

Sue her. Sometimes in the morning her residual limbs are too sore and swollen to put the legs on, or she just doesn’t feel like walking yet. And, more importantly - “You went through my apartment?”

“Well. You took longer to get back than I was expecting.”

“Dude!”

“What? I didn’t go through anything you didn’t leave out, I swear.” Five presses his fingers into her flank. “Honest, Hand to god, even. If there is a god. I’m inclined towards no, given Klaus’s entire schtick, but I like to think I learned a little something by stranding myself at the end of the world.”

“Right,” Vanya says. “The apocalypse.”

The end of the entire world. Everyone, everywhere, ash.

“What was it like?” she asks. Five frowns, hand hand slipping from her flank to scratch nervously at his nose. “I mean, what do you mean, you found ‘nothing’?”

He draws back. Vanya sways a little, slapping the top of her chair before she consciously thinks about getting a grip. Fingers curling on the cold fabric, watching Five curl in on himself, turned away like it hurts to look at her.

“I was the last man left alive,” he says, finally. Talking to her walls. Vanya quietly sits in the vacated chair, leaning forward to finish cleaning up the mess of first aid supplies. “Buildings were toppled, skeletal. You do whatever it takes to survive, or you died,” he laughs, voice high and light with something a lot worse than humour.

 _I’ve torn my fingertips trying to get the pizzicato right - have I said that already? I’m so tired_.

 _Just keep talking Vanya, we’re going to get you out of here_.

“You know that rumour twinkies have an endless shelf life? Total bullshit.” he turns back to her, frowns, and kneels, crumpling up the dirtied gauze and paper wrapping still lying on the floor.

“Thanks,” she says. 

He hums. “We adapted,” he says, still in the same light, dead-end tone. “Whatever the world threw at us, we found a way to overcome it.”

_We?_

He pauses, straightening up and offering her a hand. “I think I could use that drink now.”

\---

Vanya doesn’t have any alcohol in the apartment - she can’t drink it, not on her meds. She makes coffee instead, because juice makes too much sense at ten to midnight.

Five is studying her crutches, weighing one on his palms.

“Seriously?” Vanya sighs.

“It would be helpful if you just told me what happened. This is a forearm crutch, not under the shoulder, like something that would be used for an acute injury and discarded.” Five meets her gaze and she purses her lips in irritation. “Your cane shows signs of use as well, scratches and flaws.”

“Just take your coffee.” Vanya snaps.

The crutch is set politely back against the wall before Vanya allows Five to take the coffee mug. Vanya curls her lip when he takes a sip. Drinking coffee black is an affront to good taste.

There’s a moment of companionable silence. Vanya leans her weight against the doorframe.

The numb haze from the relaxants and the codeine can’t kill the jitters in the back of her skull. Her legs hurt. She’s not going to be able to get the prosthetics back on over the swelling if she takes them off - she’ll need to move the wheelchair into the bathroom if she wants to bathe. Tomorrow, maybe.

Five makes a low noise. “You don’t trust me.”

Vanya flinches. “No! No, it’s not that.”

“You don’t believe me,” he says, the words all coming faster one after another. “About the end of the world - you think I’m crazy, you won’t tell me what’s _wrong_.”

 _No._

“It’s not that,” Vanya says, leaning forward “It’s just - “

The world _can’t_ end in the next month. It _can’t_. The orchestra has a concert on the 29th, Piotr’s wife is pregnant and they’re not due until May. There’s a book she’s been waiting for since she picked up the series due in June, and she might not have time to read it in full until the fall since summers are so busy for lessons.

She lost two years putting herself back together. She’s back on her feet now, has an apartment, has all her receipts and her prescriptions and her scans hidden in the bottom of her underwear drawer because she doesn’t need to have them at hand anymore.

There’s so many things that are supposed to be _happening_. The world can’t just _end_.

Vanya opens her mouth a little helplessly, looking for the words, the bitter thickness of drugs clumsying her tongue. There’s a lunar eclipse in June she wanted to see, she was planning to replace her coffee table after the concert, she _just_ got Five back -

“ _Fuck_ ,” she gasps, slapping a hand over her eyes. She wanted to go see the botanical gardens in the spring. “It can’t just be _over_. I mean - what kind of - it doesn’t make sense, Five. It’s a lot to - to take in.”

There had been a moment, on The Street, where she had seen the lights coming down the hill, and realized what was about to happen. A hanging second where she had been thinking, mostly, _But I just made third chair_.

Vanya peeks up from between her fingers. “I mean,” she starts, stops. “I mean, it’s late. And I’m tired, and you’re hurt and - I don’t know Five. I don’t know what to think about this. The world can’t just _end_. Not for everyone. Not at all once. That doesn’t - ” she pauses, anguished.

It’s the wrong thing to say. Five’s face scrunches up like he’s chewing through the expressions, like she’s ruined something and he hasn’t settled on either _betrayal_ or _wrath_.

“You don’t believe me,” he repeats, looking nauseated and annoyed. “Of course not. Too young, too _naive_ to understand - “

He puts his back to her and Vanya feels sick - 

“Five,” she blurts out. He stops moving towards the door. “Five, wait. I’m sorry okay - I just.”

He half turns to her, one eyebrow raises like _yes, what are you waiting for?_

“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” she says, giving up on the right words and just looking for the few that will actually come to her stupid-slow mouth. “and I don’t want to lose you again. That’s all. And - it’s getting late, and I have lessons early. I need to sleep and I’m sure you do, too. Here, I’ll make up the couch.”

She’s late on her last mood stabilizer, she thinks as she shuffles blankets around. She doesn’t look at Five, and tries not to listen for the creak of her door if he decides to leave, anyway.

He doesn’t.

“Goodnight, Five.” she says. “We’ll talk more in the morning okay?”

“Goodnight Vanya.”

\---

Five isn’t there in the morning. 

Vanya stares at the rumpled blankets on her couch, and wonders if she made the whole thing up.

\---

Vanya’s days are fairly routine. In the morning, she teaches children how to stop the bow from screeching against the strings and play through _Hot Cross Buns_ and _Jingle Bells_. She’ll practice on her own, after - sometimes interrupted by a quick afternoon appointment. She can only go down the stairs once a day, depending on when her lessons finish, for a walk (to stretch her legs, isn’t that a thought?), to complete her errands, to busk for change.

On bad days, she teaches her appointments in her wheelchair and sits in the bathtub for six or seven hours when she’s done. This is what Piotr calls a pity party, and he’s right but Vanya will never admit to it because then she loses.

What does she lose? Theoretically nothing because she hasn’t had pride in years. The point, however, remains.

 _This morning_ , however, she can’t throw a pity party and soak in the tub until her fingers are all pruney. She’s going to go to the Academy - fucking hell - and make sure Five is around - _he better be_ \- and deal with the consequences of being a looney tune in front of her siblings if he isn’t.

Putting her legs on after listening to a grating rendition of _He’s a Jolly Good Fellow_ for two hours takes the kind of willpower Vanya likes to think would get her through a field amputation if she were a soldier in the 1800’s with his foot trapped in his horse’s stirrups. She already lived through the amputation once, she knows what she’s talking about.

Being at the Academy twice in two days is kind of like drinking apple cider vinegar. Sours the tongue, makes her stomach churn and ache. She lasted about two days trying it out before quitting that, too.

The Academy is quiet when she walks in. “Five?” Vanya calls. She misses the comforting _tap tap_ of her cane, folded into her bag again, as she picks through the house. “Are you upstairs?”

Ugh. Vanya eyes the curving stairwell in the foyer with distaste.

Can she… even climb them?

Yes. Slowly, painfully, putting her weight on the solid oak railing and ascending one aching step at a time, but she gets up the first flight. And the next, brow furrowed and shoulders hunched up to her ears.

She finds him in his old room, three staircases later, the last of which was narrow and has no railing. Vanya had to brace herself with her shoulder against a wall instead, the polyester of her jacket whining against the plaster as it was dragged along.

The _relief_ she feels, when she sees him staring out his window like a cat watching the birds flit by. “Oh thank god,” she says. “I was worried sick about you.”

“Sorry I left without saying goodbye,” he says, turning to her. He frowns.

Vanya is acutely aware of how much _walking up the stairs_ takes out of her. She’d kill to be just _ordinary_ there, but she definitely falls short. Worse than, less than. Sub-average. Her hair is probably frizzing all over the place.

“No,” she says. “No, no. I’m the one who should be sorry. You were saying something important, and I was kind of a dick about it. I- I guess I just wasn’t sure how to process what you were saying. I’m still not, to be honest.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Five says, jamming his hands in the pockets of his shorts - the pockets had been a real upgrade, when she and Klaus had traded - and tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I did break into your home and,” he grimaces. “I should have been more tactful, I guess.”

“Well,” Vanya says, sticking her hand out. “We’re at an impasse. Agree we’re both assholes?”

“Deal.” he says, shaking her hand twice, briskly. “Are you - okay?”

“Yeah,” Vanya lies through her teeth, nodding. Her missing knee aches like there’s glass wedged under the spectral joint. Her heart still hurts. “I should be asking you that. You look a bit keyed up. Did you sleep at all?”

“Ah - ” he laughs, “Not really. I was going to do that, but.”

“Oh! Okay. Well, I’ll, uh.” she jerks her thumb at the door. “I’ll let you sleep. Get some rest, Five.”

She is so -

 _Useless_. Can barely even talk, and not because she hurt her jaw in the accident. How does one get people to understand them? How does she stop existing only inside her own head?

Hopefully Five feels better once he’s slept, since she keeps managing to say all the wrong words.

Except, standing on the landing of the skinny stairs with no railing and working up the goddamn will to descend them, she hears a thud, and the sharp noise of hard plastic hitting the ground.

“... _Stuff about being assholes and breaking and entering_ -”

“ _Be quiet idiot, she’ll hear you,_ ” Five hisses.

“ _I’m moist_ ,” Klaus thrills.

Vanya inhales deeply, because what the hell, and pinches the bridge of her nose. She shuffles back to Five’s doorway, where he and Klaus are having a disagreement on clothes.

“This is my nicest outfit,” pouts Klaus, dressed like someone trying to solicit drugs from undercover cops during a 70’s themed silent disco. 

Vanya frowns, crossing her arms across her chest. Klaus starts when he sees her.

“Oh, hey, Vanya. Wow, you look - great.” he smiles, looking harassed. Five turns to her like a sulky child, like he’s been caught reading after lights out again.

“Going to sleep, huh?” she asks. “What is this about?”

\---

Vanya turns the prosthetic eye over in her palms. “There’s no way Meritech is going to tell you whose eye this is. First of all, serial numbers are only kept in reference to a file number, and the file has the patient number, and you’d then have to go through the files marked with the patient number to get to the identity of the person you’re looking for, all of which are kept on separate floors. It’s a real pain in the ass.”

“ _Second_ ,” she says. “Meritech _kind of_ has a reputation for selling prosthetics under the table, which might be a problem. They can’t sell them for as much as they could bill through insurance, but the people involved get to pocket the cash, and I doubt they keep their records in with the legal files.”

Five leans forward, intent. “And you know this… how?”

“Well,” she says. “I was never a member of the Academy, so I don’t have health insurance.”

“And you know about the ins and outs of prosthetics, why?” Five asks, eyes narrowing.

Vanya raises a brow. Half guilty shame prickles on the back of her neck as she twists to make sure Klaus hasn’t finished trying on Dad’s suits, and then tugs the hem of her jeans up a few inches.

Just far enough to expose the dull metal of the titanium strut making up her calf.

Five makes a low, pained noise. His hands fall away from his chin as he scoots to the very edge of his seat, leaning closer.

They’re nice, objectively. Good, strong legs. _Her_ legs, a part of her body, a part of her minds eye. They get her place to place, she can use them to stand or, if she’s desperate, navigate stairwells.

She hates them. She hates that they’re _necessary_.

But there’s no taking back what happened.

Vanya drops the leg of her jeans back in place, tugging it down. No reason to risk anyone else seeing anything. 

“You can’t really buy prosthetics without health insurance unless you’re a little - uh, unscrupulous? About it?” Vanya shrugs. “Mine are Meritech. I think his name was Lance? He handled everything, and I paid him cash.”

“Are, plural?”

“Yeah.”

Five’s eyes flicker from her shoes to her face, back to her shoes again.

“Was it bad?” he asks.

Vanya’s mouth twists. She looks away, at one of the portraits she was never in. At the little oil and pigment memory of Ben hanging on the walls.

Bilateral amputation, broken fingers, broken teeth, fractured spine, bruised ribs, bruised _everything_. Blood and drugs and pain and goddamn _ethanol alcohol and lemon cleaner_.

“It could have been worse,” Vanya tells him.

“What happened?”

Vanya closes her eyes. Headlights live on the back of her lids. “Car crash. I’m alright now.”

Five’s brow furrows. He opens his mouth to say more -

“Does _this_ meet your standards, Five?’ Klaus asks loudly, appearing in the doorway in one of Dad’s striped navy suits. “Can we go now? I have plans, you know.”

Five scowls, straightening. “You aren’t going to wash the eyeliner off?”

“No. Oh, what’s our cover story? Like, I’m pretending to be your dear old Dad right? DId I have you super young? Like sixteen? Like young and,” he sniffs, folding his hands over his heart in mock earnestness. “Like young and _terribly_ misguided,”

“Sure,” says Five, glancing back to Vanya with a look on his face like _do not judge me for Klaus’s bullshit_.

Klaus, who has never been concerned about social niceties in his entire life, keeps going. “Your mother, that _slut!_ We met at - “ he pauses, then smiles. “The _disco_. Remember that, okay? Oh my god, the sex was _amazing_ ,”

“What a _disturbing_ glimpse into that thing you call a brain.” Five says. Vanya giggles. “Vanya - “

“I have lessons,” she hurries to say, before Five can tell her she’s not wanted or needed, or worse, invite her to the Meritech building she still sees sometimes in her dreams. “I probably should start heading back soon, actually.”

Five deflates, relieved. “We’ll finish our talk later?”

“Aw, but don’t you want to be little Five’s mommy dearest - _oof_ \- ow, hey, don’t hit me!”

“ _Stop talking_ ,” Five hisses.

“Sure,” she says, ignoring them. “You can come over when you’re done, okay?”

“Okay,” says Five.

“ _Watch the hair!_ ” wails Klaus. Definitely his own fault.

\---

Allison clatters into the kitchen with a slamming of doors and the shrieking of chair legs on the tiles. She sits heavily, practically throwing her head into her hands as she slumps over the table.

Vanya pauses halfway through sipping her water, pills waiting on her open palm. When Allison doesn’t react she fills her mouth with water, and tosses back the bitter tablets.

“You okay?” Vanya asks, scraping the taste of the T-3 off her tongue.

Allison snorts. Her fingers card through her hair aggressively.

Vanya - hesitates. She should really just leave, probably.

“You know - “ she says instead of leaving, because this isn’t a hospital but it doesn’t smell like cookies, either. “If you wanted to talk, or something - “

 _Mistake_. Allison’s shoulders draw in tight, something predatory in the way she pulls herself up off the table.

“Really,” Allison drawls, picking her head up on the tips of her perfectly manicured fingers. “What am I going to talk to you about, Vanya? No offense, but if I wanted to talk to someone, it wouldn’t be _you_.”

She should have just left. Should have - figured out what was bothering Allison, should have taken off her leg and shoved the foot into her mouth. Just because _Five_ speaks to her -

Vanya swallows around the ice in her chest, the ease leaving her tongue. “What does that mean?”

“What do we even have in common? What could I possibly gain from talking to you?” Allison sniffs, wiping at her eyes. “I mean, you’ve never even had a relationship. What do you know about loving someone so much that you would die - “ Allison inhales deeply. “Actually _die_ , to know she’s happy and safe. You don’t. You seperate yourself from everything and everyone, you always have.”

Staring endlessly at the backs of her siblings, kept away from the common rooms _you weren’t even there you aren’t one of us_. “Because Dad made me,” Vanya says, bitterness in her throat threatening to choke her. 

It’s not from the pills.

Allison laughs, incredulous. “Did Dad make you write that book about us, too?”

Vanya clenches her jaw, and the bitterness floods her mouth.

“No, he didn’t.” The bitterness colours her voice, practically a snarl. “Believe it or not, the book actually wasn’t about you at all. But you know what? You earned every single word.”

\---

Vanya limps up the stairs of her apartment. Her back is a line of fire, muscles overstressed from the burden of balance.

She’s going to seize up, she knows. If she’s very lucky, puts the heat on her spine and takes her cyclo’s she might be able to weather the hard metal chairs at orchestra tomorrow without ruining the entire rest of her week. 

A man hurries past her, nearly kicking out her cane as he thunders up the steps. Vanya glares at his bulky black raincoat, and painfully takes the next step. 

When she gets to her hallway, the man in the raincoat is waiting in front of her door, knocking and looking confused.

“Can I help you?” Vanya calls.

The man looks up. Dark eyes, short hair. “Oh! Are you - Vanya Hargreeves, right?” he takes a step toward her, holding out a hand for her to shake. She doesn’t take it. “I’m Leonard, I’m your four o’clock?”

“Right,” Vanya sighs. She doesn’t like having afternoon appointments. “Sorry, I’m running a bit behind today. Let me just get at my door.”

She doesn’t hang her cane on the hook, limping through to her kitchen to take another T-3. 4 o’clock, she can take another at 8, but not before. “Just leave your coat on the chair. I’ll uh - do you have your own violin?”

“Uh, no.”

“You can use mine for this lesson,” she says, because this happens all the time. Ideally, she’ll be able to afford a second, cheaper violin just for lessons one day.

Leonard is studying her small collection of drawings her other students have drawn for her, pinned to the corkboard. She’s very proud of the one where she has purple skin and big devil’s horns declaring her a _musicil goblin_ :(.

“I’m guessing I look a bit different than your usual students?” Leonard asks, but his voice is more wry and amused than nervous.

“Uh, no.” she pauses. Is she feeling daring? “No, only about twenty years or so.” she huffs a laugh. He does too, which is good. God knows she’s trampled over every other conversation today. “Come on, I’ll get you set up.”

Leonard is - objectively terrible. That’s what happens when you’ve never done something before, though. His Frère Jacques is only passably recognizable as the correct tune, but he does respond better to corrections than a seven year old, or any of Vanya’s siblings.

He’s… sweet, she supposes. Except for nearly kicking her cane out from underneath her as she walked. Sweet and ordinary. Maybe he’s never laid in a hospital alone with a fractured spine and missing his legs, but. She understands the loneliness of a family you just can’t rely on just fine.

She can’t just pick up a new skill to learn about her siblings, though. It’s just not in the cards.

He invites her to his shop in Bricktown, and she politely turns him down. All she wants to do is curl up in the tub and die, or maybe just for the pain to stop for one single moment.

She rolls her wheelchair into the bathroom, turns the water on as hot as she can stand and curls up in the bathtub, fingers jammed into the twitching band of muscle seizing up her back.

She’s earned her goddamn pity party.

\---

There’s a thud and a clatter somewhere in her apartment hours later. Vanya frowns, opening her eyes to the blue darkness of twilight in her bathroom.

Another thud. Footsteps. A light flicking on.

“Vanya?” Five calls, tentative and low. Right.

She considers staying quiet - she’s _really_ not up to another conversation.

“Five,” she responds before she can think better of it. “I’m in the bath, hold on.”

Getting out of a bath is always a trial. Vanya wipes down the edge of the tub the towel she was smart enough to leave out before getting in to get rid of the worst of the slipperiness. 

Then, wincing because her back is still tender and liable to spasm at just the wrong moment, Vanya grips her safety bar and the edge of the tub and lifts herself onto her single knee, quickly shifting to get her weight sitting on the edge of the tub.

 _Ow_. Pain sings down the taut muscles in her low back, but once she’s sitting on the edge of the tub she considers herself past the dangerous part. She shuffles cautiously to sit facing the outside of the tub before leaning down for her towel.

“So how’d it go?” she calls. “Did you find your mystery one-eyed person?”

“No.” There's a rustling, Five undoing a zipper. “ _Lance_ , ugh, had security get rid of us when we subtly implied he was dealing under the table. I’ll go back tomorrow.

 _Subtly, right_.

“How on earth are you getting appointments that quickly?” it had taken Vanya _months_ , plural, to get into Meritech.

“Appointments?” Five responds, wry. “Why would I book an appointment?”

Of course.

Once she’s towelled herself off to her satisfaction, Vanya carefully shifts and slithers off the edge of the tub, kneeling on the bathmat. She twists carefully - and decides to just turn around when it twangs her back to pull the plug and drain the tub. She sits on the damp mat on her bare ass - never not uncomfortable - and tugs her wheelchair over.

Now the tricky part, part two. Electric boogaloo, hell yeah. Vanya sets the brakes on her wheelchair shifting back into a lopsided kneel braced with both palms on the rails. She lifts herself just a little, and when her back doesn’t give out on her, lifts herself forward into her seat and twists to shift and settle.

Not graceful, by any means, but functional enough.

She pulls her towel over herself like the world's sluttiest blanket and cautiously wheels out of the bathroom.

Five is sitting on her couch, arms crossed. Still in the formal academy uniform.

“I’m gonna get dressed.” she says. “You can take anything you like from the kitchen.”

She pulls on her pajamas, _doesn’t_ put on her legs, simply folding the legs of her sweatpants so they won’t get caught in the wheels of her chair. She does drape a blanket over her lap, though, tucking the hem under her butt so it won’t drag. Just to disguise the outline of her limbs a bit more.

She pokes her head out of her bedroom door. “Are you going to be weird about the wheelchair?”

“I will do my absolute best not to be,” Five responds from somewhere in her kitchen. The familiar gurgle of her coffee machine processing water is loud in the small space.

To his credit, he doesn’t give her a sideways glance when Vanya rolls into the kitchen. _She_ , however, has questions.

Sitting on her couch, tucked into her throw blankets in a manner Vanya can only describe as _loving_ , is the dirty torso of a one-armed mannequin with a bald head and a sharp nose.

“Uh,” she says, hands freezing on the handrim. 

“Oh, yes.” Five mutters. “How rude of me, Vanya, I’m sure you weren’t expecting visitors.” he sweeps past her, taking the mannequin in his arms and cradling her plastic head in his palm like they’re posing for the cover of a romance novel.

It would be touching, if Five wasn’t thirteen and making significant eye contact with a mannequin.

“Vanya,” he says, shifting the mannequin so she’s facing Vanya. “This is Delores. Delores, this is my sister Vanya.”

Delores? Like Delores from Five’s time travelling, Delores from the apocalypse?

A hysterical giggle bubbles in Vanya’s chest and she has to fight down an incredulous grin. Is Five serious?

Except he is serious. There’s a crease between his eyebrows, and his jaw is tight. He’s staring at Vanya with thinly concealed terror, wiggling his toes nervously against her laminate flooring. Like a little kid waiting to be shot down by someone they so desperately want the approval of.

Like Vanya playing a melody before her father, fingers sore, and not even getting a glance up.

So she smiles, warm, at Delores the mannequin, and feels only a little bit silly. “Hello,” she says. “Five has spoken about you a little bit. All good, I swear.”

The beaming smile on Five’s face makes it worth it. This can’t be much worse than talking to her I.V. stand, or the ghost of Five.

“Are you making coffee?” Vanya asks, because she is not going to try and make conversation with Delores lest she fuck something up. “What time is it?”

“It’s not even ten yet.” Five says dismissively, tucking Delores back into Vanya’s blankets. 

She accepts a cup of coffee from Five, who added just a bit too much milk and not enough sugar. Five, for his part, is mostly chattering long-winded mathematical equations at Delores, pausing for her silent input, and defending the math that brought him through the timeline as a teenager.

He does not, she notices, stare at her residual limbs, at her chair, at the absolute birdsnest of her hair. It’s going to take ages to brush all the knots out.

Vanya swallows her pills with a mouthful of coffee, two T-3’s and a cyclo’ to try and stave off any night spasms. She missed a dose for her anxiety pills somewhere between draining the tub partway and adding new hot water to soothe her back.

Ugh. Whatever.

“I was hoping to have more time before the Commission found me, but these things happen.” Five shrugs. “Are you listening? Vanya?”

“I’m listening. I took a muscle relaxant is all, so I’m a little,” she draws a circle by her temple. “The Commission?”

“They want the apocalypse to move forward, we do not.” Five says. “Obviously.”

Vanya scrunches up her nose.

“The Commission monitors the timeline to make sure it follows a certain sequence of events,” Five says. “The apocalypse is an event that occurs, and so the Commission ensures it does.”

“That’s very stupid.”

“It’s a bureaucracy, they’re stupid by nature.” he snorts. “Yes I know. It’s not like we had many other options. It’s not like staying in the ruins was much safer. She’s not going to come personally, you know what she’s like. Them? Why would I be worried about _Hazel and Cha-Cha?_ ”

Vanya has to admit, she wouldn’t be threatened by anyone named Cha-Cha either.

But she’s tired - there’s no emotional shock of _the end of the world_ to scare off the chemical exhaustion, and she’s sore and tired from two days of being on her feet and _staircases_. She yawns, cracking her jaw.

“I’m gonna,” she jerks a thumb towards her bedroom. “Should I make up the couch again? You and Delores are welcome to stay.”

“I can get it.” Five says, already making for her linen closet. Vanya is going to have to get a toothbrush for him if he’s going to be staying over so often. A proper mattress.

“Goodnight,” she says.

Her little apartment isn’t quite so lonely anymore. What an odd thought.

She wonders if Five will still be here in the morning.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _inserts my anti staircase agenda directly into the fic_
> 
> i love writing vanya just a bit too prickly for her emotional state in canon. she's angry!
> 
> (don't worry i absolutely ADORE allison, we're gonna be seeing a lot of her)


	4. A Kind of Improvement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> owo
> 
> I'm super flattered with all the attention my little disability salt fic is getting?? I was _not_ expecting this kind of response!

Vanya is putting her legs on when she hears an electric whine and a clatter from her kitchen. She pauses, then pulls the sock up over her knee, carefully sliding the prosthetic liner over her limb, shelf just under her kneecap.

“Five?” she calls. 

“Yeah,” he responds. “Stepped out for a moment. I brought breakfast.”

She nods, though he can’t see it, positioning her prosthetic, sliding her residual limb into the sleeve and clicking the liner down, eyeing the fit, and securing the suspension around her thigh. 

There’s a quiet knock at her door. “Can I come in?” Five asks.

Vanya hesitates. “I haven’t finished putting on my legs yet.”

“ _I’m_ not bothered if you aren’t.”

She chews on her lip. “Okay, sure.”

Five eases into her bedroom, checking his blindspot behind the door like someone is going to leap out at him. He’s holding a drink tray and a bag of food from Starbucks.

Vanya yanks the sock up her residual limb before accepting the cup of something, marked _Andrea_.

“Really?” she asks. It’s a caramel latte. It’s sweet - and there’s no way Five actually ordered a caramel latte of his own volition.

Five winks, sitting next to her on her mattress. “There’s an egg sandwich and a croissant in here, and… I think a brownie?”

They split the egg sandwich poorly, Five getting the bigger half. Vanya takes the croissant and Five the brownie. Sweet tooth, but not for coffee apparently.

“Answers about your mystery eye today?” she asks around a mouthful of croissant. 

“If _Lance_ ,” Five sneers the name “Gives me the runaround one more time I’m going to break both his hands.”

“Ouch. No Delores?” 

He starters, staring at her wide eyed. And then he grins, bright and shy. “She’s not really a morning person. She’s still sleeping on the couch.”

Vanya nods. Fair enough. Well, fair enough about the person she supposes the mannequin is to Five.

Five hums, tips his head back, eyeing the curve of Vanya’s shoulder, her collar left exposed by her tanktop. “Glass?”

“What?”

“The scars. Glass shards?”

“Oh.” Vanya reaches up, running her fingertips across the pockmark scars. “The windshield shattered. I caught most of it with my chest.”

She feels very underdressed, all of a sudden. Five is in his uniform - has he had no time to pick up a different outfit? Or is he just nostalgic? But she’s just in a thin white tanktop and black boxer briefs. She doesn’t even have both her legs on. She maybe should have gotten more dressed before allowing Five in her room - thrown on a sweater to cover the fact she isn’t wearing a bra (not that she ever wears bras, the deathtraps), pulled a blanket over her lap. 

Five doesn’t seem fussed about her pajamas though, busy studying the dragging silvery worm of scar tissue cutting over her collarbone and to the base of her throat. “It must have been quite the accident. I didn’t think windshields shattered like that.”

Vanya shrugs. “I give it a seven out of ten as far as accidents go. No fatalities, that was good, and I _did_ go off a ditch and flip a few times. No explosions, though - loses points for lack of drama.”

Five barks out a laugh. “That only happens in movies.”

“Exactly! I’m just saying, if I’m going to get into another wreck one day I want it to be like the movies. Explosions, crawling out on your own with one aesthetically placed scratch near your hairline and zero other injuries. The whole shebang.”

Five’s mouth fishhooks up at one corner. “I mean, ideally no wrecks at all, right?”

“But if there _has_ to be one - “

Vanya has Five fetch her black pants out of her dresser for her while she finishes putting on her left leg, folding the sock over the lip of the socket. She has to tug her boxer briefs all the way bunched around her hip, and while she had to get rid of her modesty years ago, she’s not _completely_ feral.

Five isn’t a nurse or a physical therapist, it’s a different kind of watching. His eyes assessing on her artificial knee when the lock clicks, at the scars on her forearms and chest. Not the clinical gaze of a nurse who’s seen worse, better, more interesting, less horrible.

“Dressing up?” he asks, holding out her formal slacks. 

“Orchestra dress code,” she says. “Where did I put my white shirts? Shit, my _hair_.”

“Pants first. Panic later.”

\---

Vanya staggers into practice ten minutes late, the smooth sounds of Mendelssohn’s octet in E-Flat major already brightening up the room. Her cane clatters as she walks, the joint not quite tightened far enough. 

She sits as quietly as she can on the chair left empty on the left edge, but not quiet enough. Johannesburg drops his hands, the music cutting off.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she apologizes, wincing. The click of the latches on her violin case is loud in the practice hall.

Johannesburg tilts his head, smiling thinly. “I hadn’t noticed,” he says. He taps his baton against the music stand. “From the top.”

She tightens her bow, tucking her violin under her chin. The music starts again - she’ll tune as they play.

It’s fine. No real harm done.

Like Johannesburg said, he hadn’t even noticed she wasn’t there.

The most disruptive thing she had done was arrive.

\----

The bathrooms in the music hall are all gleaming white quartz and stark LED lights, a soft blue tile accent wall glittering near the stalls. It smells more like bleach than ethanol alcohol and lemon cleaner, the floors are mopped a few times a day and the trash is never much more than half full. As far as semi-public restrooms go, it’s a nice one. Vanya doesn’t feel weird about peeing in it, especially since she actually needs to sit on the toilet.

Vanya skirts past two of the cellists on her way to the sinks, Helen from first chair fixing her hair in the mirrors. Vanya washes her hand with the thin washroom soap that’s endemic to any public washroom, no matter how nice. She flickers her eye up to the mirror, watching Helen fuss with how her hair frames her face.

Helen is - amazing. She’s always so composed, her heels _click_ sharply when she walks. She flies through the Stravinsky that’s been killing Vanya for _weeks_ now, unseated since the first time Vanya made third chair. Helen is so - so beautiful. She has freckles and a beaky nose and black, _black_ eyes. 

Vanya chews on her lip. She turns to face Helen, trying for _politely friendly_ , probably settling on _awkward schoolgirl_.

“You were amazing out there,” she says. “Really - really great.”

Helen’s eyes flicker to her, brief and unimpressed. She stops fussing with her hair. “Thanks,” she says shortly, picking up her case.

“It’s those runs in the Stravinsky,” Vanya offers up impulsively, “I’ve been hacking at them for weeks, and you - “

“Make them look easy?” Helen finally turns to face her, looking at Vanya with cool dispassion.

Helen is very beautiful, and she makes Vanya feel very small, and right now very stupid.

Helen looks her up and down, the faintest hint of a crease between her brows. “What’s your name again?”

Vanya has sat behind Helen for three years, and then two years earlier for a few weeks until her accident. They’ve had conversations. “Vanya,” she prompts.

“Vanya,” Helen agrees, _sure that is your name I suppose_ , “And how many years have you been stuck at third chair?”

 _I just made third chair_ , she had told the firefighter, bleeding onto the roof of her car, _A real orchestra. It’s the - the sidekick seat, but it’s still on the stage._

_That’s amazing. You must be really good. I played violin for a few years as a kid, never got the hang of it. What’s your favourite piece? Vanya, focus for me._

“At a certain point, it’s not about practice.” Helen continues coldly, utterly assured in her words. “It’s whether you’ve got something special. Maybe you just… ” her eyes flick up and down Vanya’s body, settle for a moment on the beaten up cane held firmly in her right hand. “Don’t.”

“You can put in your ten thousand hours,” she continues. “Or… you can go find something you’re actually passionate about and stop slogging away at Stravinsky like a scared thirteen year old.”

 _Violin is what I am passionate about_ , Vanya thinks. _Violin is what I thought of when the splints came off my fingers. Violin is what I thought of the first time I stood on my own new legs, of swaying and not falling as I drew the bow over the strings. Violin is what got me through those endless days in my room, alone. Totally alone._

“Think it over,” says Helen.

Vanya doesn’t look up as she leaves.

\---

The thing is -

Vanya knows her playing isn’t the most interesting. Technically she has good form, she hits the highs and the lows on beat, her draw is steady and smooth. She has a bit of a light touch, a softer sound than the deep resonance that Helen seems to prefer. It’s just - when she deviates from the sheet it’s a _mistake_ , it’s not _style_. 

She plays like a timid robot. Technically near perfect, and utterly bland.

It makes her a good third chair. It makes her a good _teacher_. She is the backdrop on which the extraordinary base their flourish.

She just -

She’s only ever worth remembering when she’s hurting people.

\---

“I feel like I’m stuck in a rut.” Vanya tells the flat expanse of the pillow under her cheek, “I’ve stopped moving. I’ve stopped improving, stopped- ow!”

“Sorry,” Piotr says, not sounding very sorry. His fingers knuckle harder against the strip of muscle winding up her back. “You said one of your brothers came to visit, right? That’s good.”

Vanya’s eyelashes scrape against the cotton pillowcase when she blinks. “Yeah. That was good.”

“That’s a kind of improvement - okay deep breaths here I’m going to try and loosen this up - you’re very isolated. Being more social is genuinely good for you, and the fact that you’re reaching out despite being rebuffed is definitely, you know, work. It’s not something you would have done two weeks ago, was it?”

No. Vanya hisses as Piotr’s rough fingers dig into the taut muscle, glass and flesh, something lodged into her skin, forcing back the meat and muscle. No she wouldn’t have spoken to Helen, or asked how Allison was when she was mad.

Dad’s death should have meant something, shouldn’t it? That she didn’t have to be quiet anymore? She could - fit in. She could be someone not in her siblings shadow, Dad not there to send her to her room, _ordinary_ ringing in her ears.

“No one wants me, though.” she says tightly, trying to relax. “Well, maybe Five. And my students.”

“Try to reach out more. Your students are mostly kids, right - you can try to connect with their parents, or the other violin tutors. Maybe go out for coffee. And do your back stretches.”

“I have been! It’s all the fucking - _ow_ \- the Academy doesn’t have an elevator, okay, it’s the stairs. Jeeze.”

“And I believe you,” Piotr doesn’t even try to sound sincere, the ass. “I’m gonna go grab the IFC, you wait here.”

\---

The next two days pass uneventfully, oddly enough. Five doesn’t show up in her apartment in a shower of sparks, she doesn’t run into any of her siblings on the street, all her students are regulars she’s known for a while.

One of her errands - blackboard paint and chalk, a toothbrush and soft sleeping pants - takes her to bricktown.

She doesn’t mean to stop anywhere else, exactly. It’s just -

 _Imperial Woodwares_ , the sign declares in gold on cobalt. There’s an old looking shoe shining station outside unattended, and a beautifully worn writing desk. The kind of desk Vanya liked to daydream about while typing up her autobiography.

 _Try to reach out more_ , Piotr had said. And Leonard had invited her to visit - maybe. Maybe she won’t be - unwelcome.

 _Imperial woodwares_ is warm inside, and cluttered. So very, _very_ cluttered. Wooden furniture of every kind, from chairs to desks to a wooden canoe with salmon carved into the sides are stacked up the walls, chandeliers and bird houses hanging from the ceiling.

“Wow,” she breathes. Her cane grinds noisily against itself as she walks.

There’s a clatter of wood on wood, Leonard straightening up from the back of the shop, peering over the stacks of furniture. “Vanya?”

“Hi,” she offers a little wag of her fingers, clutching the bag of paint and chalk between her sweaty fingers. _Please don’t be mad at me_. “I uh, had an errand. Thought I’d stop in.”

Leonard -

Smiles, wide and genuine.

“It’s good to see you - give me a second to get cleaned up, I’m covered in wood shavings.”

Leonard does _restoration antiques_ , which Vanya can only assume means that he fixes old wooden furniture - and knick knacks, wooden sculptures, coat hooks, old tennis rackets. The sheer variety of everything piled into the shop is sort of mind boggling.

She wonders if she’s more like a _Vanya Hargreeves_ or a _Helen Cho_ of woodworking. Maybe this is ordinary, for his profession.

She doubts it. Never been a prodigy at anything her ass.

“I like the sailfish,” she says, pointing to the painted sculpture mounted on the wall. It has to be eight feet long.

“Yeah, I don’t know where that one came from, actually.” Leonard says, wincing and sucking air through his teeth. “It’s not actually _my shop_ , you see. I was just trying to - uh - impress you? I guess?”

Vanya blinks. Impress her? “Why?”

“Well - you’re just so good with the violin. You remember when you were in high school and you made an ass of yourself trying to get the cool kids to think you fit in? Guess I never got over that.” 

Vanya stares at his jaw. Leonard rubs the back of his head nervously. “A little embarrassing I know,” he says.

“I have never been cool,” Vanya interrupts, “A day in my life.”

“Well.” Leonard says. “I don’t know. I thought you were pretty cool.”

Vanya - well.

“You almost tripped me in the stairwell,” she says, instead of _thank you_ or _that’s sweet_.

Leonard winces, not taking a moment to defend himself or think of what she’s talking about with the abrupt subject change. “I am _so_ sorry,” he says earnestly, holding up his hands like he can physically offer up an apology. “There I thought I was running late, being so inconsiderate - I feel really bad about it.”

“Oh.” Vanya tucks a strand of hair behind her ears, suddenly annoyed with it’s refusal to stay put. “Well. Just don’t do it again, okay?”

“Of course. Actually - you know, I have a couple of canes in here somewhere. You want to see?”

There’s more than a few. Simple oaken canes with curving handles, more complex ones with a wiggly shaft, canes with intricate carved wooden handles in the shape of ducks or dragons. Vanya thinks about leaning on one and winces - the edges would cut into her hand in no time.

There’s one, though. It’s a straight cane with a scroll handle, like hers, but made of a beautiful striated red wood, the handle a clear turquoise that’s somehow set into the wood unevenly partway through the shaft, like water over rocks.

“Burmese rosewood, with a resin handle.” Leonard says. “They’re actually fairly difficult, since you can’t pour the resin on the wood in blocks and shape on a lathe. Pretty, right?”

“Yeah.” Vanya says, stamping the solid rubber foot against the hard floor with a soft _thud, thud_. “It’s a beautiful cane.”

“It’s about the right size, too. Yeah, right at your wrist.” Leonard straightens, clapping his hands together. “Vanya. I would like for you to take this cane.”

“What?” Vanya’s brows fly up. “Oh, no. I can’t afford it - “

“No. no. As a gift. Or an apology - for being an ass the first time we met. Please, keep it. It’s perfect for you.”

“Leonard - “

“ _Vanya_. Take the cane.” Leonard smiles. He has a good face, boyish and friendly. “It’s perfect. It’s like it was made for you.”

And -

Well, what is Vanya to do, but blush and thank him?

\---

They go for a walk to test out the cane. It’s heavier than her aluminium collapsible, doesn’t jar or grate against itself. Vanya feels - very cool, very classy with it. Like her cane isn’t just a mobility aide, but some kind of fashionable accessory. She is doing this on purpose, and not because she must.

 _No wonder Allison likes to dress up_ , she thinks wryly.

Leonard doesn’t ask her what’s wrong. What _happened_ to her. She’s -

Well, she kind of likes it. That he’s leaving it up to her, instead of prodding, poking.

“Hey,” he says as they amble down the sidewalk. “This might be a little inappropriate seeing as I’m your,” he bobs his head. “Impressionable, _young_ student, but.”

Vanya laughs, Leonard giving her an uneven grin in response, slowing to a stop. Vanya stops with him, and he leans in. “Would you want to have dinner with me tonight?”

Oh. Vanya rocks back on her heels in surprise - or would have, if she could trust her ability to stay standing.

When she doesn’t answer right away, he gets this - sad little smile on his face, like _of course not_. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” and he means it perfectly polite.

So she says “No!” fast, in a rush, putting her hand on her chest.

“It’s fast,” he says, glancing away, so she blurts out.

“I want to,” she says. “I mean, I’d like that.”

He looks back to her, meeting her eyes. A bright grin already tugging at the corner of his mouth as he says “Yeah?”

“Yeah!” Try to reach out more, right? And - first impressions aside, Leonard seems… sweet. Like he actually sees her. _Her_ , not her family, not her shadow haunted by pain and pills or heroes that she wasn’t even allowed to tag behind.

Except -

When she looks up -

“Allison?” she asks.

Allison lifts one of her hands in an awkward half wave, smiling self consciously. Not like from the kitchen, frowning, face crumpled in sorrow or maybe rage or maybe a mix of both. Allison always seemed to feel so much, all of the time.

She looks beautiful. Vanya feels much frumpier in her scavenged coat. The cane, heavy in her hand, suddenly feels out of place. At once too fancy - and too obvious. Pointing out her flaws.

And Leonard recognizes her. Of course he does - who wouldn’t? Allison is one of the most famous - most beautiful, most desirable, most _perfect_ people on the planet. Vanya’s just -

She’s been third chair for a lot longer than three years, is all.

But he -

Asks her for a raincheck. Instead of staring after Allison, or complaining when Vanya’s invited to the first family meeting in ten years, _her_ first family meeting ever, he turns back to her, and says it’s okay if they push back their date. He turns back to her.

“I’ve got your number through the lessons,” Leonard says. “I hope it’s okay - I mean, I could call you later?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I’d uh - I’d like that. Oh - I don’t have yours.”

Leonard, as it turns out, carries business cards on him, and a pen of which to scrawl his home phone on the back. So she does have his number after all.

Allison gives her an interested glance when Leonard walks away, quirking her brows, cocking her hip. “Who’s the guy?” 

“He’s a - just a friend,” Vanya says.

Allison’s brows creepy higher towards her hairline. “Just a friend?”

“No - it’s not.” Vanya rolls her eyes, “Maybe I’m just trying to not separate myself from everything and everyone,” she says, enaunciating the words just like Allison did. A little crisper on the r’s.

Except Allison’s face falls. She doesn’t join in on the - the _joke_.

And things only get stranger when she says “I’m sorry,” when she shakes her head and says “I shouldn’t have said those things to you yesterday. I was angry with Patrick, and I - I took it out on you.”

“I’m not good at this whole - sister thing,” she says it like a secret, like Vanya hadn’t figured that out -

Years ago.

“I hadn’t noticed,” she lies, dry.

“Ouch.” Allison’s lips quirk up in a grin. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“Maybe I will,” Vanya fires back, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I guess - for what it’s worth, I was kind of a dick back. So, sorry, I guess.”

“Convincing.” but she’s grinning, not angry, and Vanya finds herself smiling back “Alright, enough of this. I feel like Dad’s going to leap out of the mailbox and tell us off for communicating. I’m parked back this way.”

And just like that, mood’s gone. Vanya freezes, fingers tightening on the slippery resin handle of her new cane.

“You coming?” Allison asks, already turning to walk back to her car. “Vanya?”

“Yeah - I’m coming.” Vanya trots after Allison obediently. 

Even back when they were kids, wearing the same shoes instead of the heeled boots Allison now prefers, back when Vanya was on her own two feet, she was a lot slower than her sister. Now, Allison keeps looking back and pausing when she sees how far behind Vanya is. Waiting for her to catch up and slowing her pace.

“What’s with the cane?” Allison asks, pulling out her keys. A four door chirps at them, Allison’s car. “Is it for a show or something?”

“I - yep. For the orchestra.” Vanya tries to hasten her steps, cane _tap-tapping_ , but she’s not steady enough on her feet.”I uh - I get a bit carsick now. So - “

“Oh no, you’re not going to puke are you?”

“No - I just might close my eyes for the ride.”

\---

It’s terrible. Allison asks her twice if Vanya needs to stop and throw up.

\---

Vanya sits on the chaise lounge, half watching the grainy footage of Mom turning away from Dad as he clutches his chest. It’s a bit difficult, from her angle, Luther keeps stepping in her eyeline.

When Allison said the meeting was _about Mom_ , she figured she meant like - Mom was able to leave the manor grounds now, so they were taking her out to an arts museum. Maybe even MOMA.

She didn’t think Allison meant _Mom’s a killer_.

“I mean,” she says, wiggling her right foot, flexing her knee. “Do you really think Mom would hurt Dad?”

“You haven’t been home in a long time, Vanya,” Luther says with barely a glance towards her. “Maybe you don’t know Grace anymore.”

 _Grace_. What’s with this first name bullshit?

“If he was _poisoned_ ,” Diego says, with the irritated pseudo-patience of someone who has said these words ten or twenty times. “It would have shown in the coroners report.”

“Well, I don’t need a report to tell me what I can see with my own eyes,” Luther flicks his hands towards the staticy film.

Diego nods, rolling his eyes. “Maybe all that low gravity in space messed your vision,” he says, rewinding the tape. “Look closer.”

Vanya leans forward, but Luther blocks her sightline watching the video all intent. He’s the one that matters, she guesses. The only one that gives a shit about Dad’s death.

“Dad has his monocle. Mom stands up. Monocle’s gone,” Diego walks back to leave against the table with the old dragon-cow sculpture. “She wasn’t poisoning him, she was taking it. To clean it.”

Vanya nods. Mom was always squirelling things away to polish and repair.

But Luther keeps shaking his head. “No, I’ve searched the house including all her things,” way to invade Mom’s privacy, Luther “She doesn’t have it.”

She did, though. She did and Diego took it.

“Hey, no.” Vanya says when Diego goes from playing with his knife to getting ready to stab someone, Luther’s shoulders tensing under his overcoat. “No, calm down. Look do we even care if Mom killed Dad?”

“What?”

“Fuck, Luther, this is _Dad_ we’re talking about. It’s not like he was good to anyone, but especially not her.” Vanya groans. “I’m just saying - Dad died of a heart attack. But if Mom _did_ kill him, I mean, _I’d_ be comfortable with that.”

The silence is sudden, sharp, and heavy on her shoulders.

Diego points at her. “She’s got the right idea.” he says, for the first time probably _ever_ “Even if it _was_ murder - which it’s _not_ \- who’s to say Dad didn’t deserve it somehow?”

“You two _have_ to be joking,” Allison says. “Mom can’t just start killing people!”

“Nobody killed anybody, because it was a _heart attack_ ,” Diego snaps. “And Dad was a dick, anyway.”

Luther grimaces. “Mom was supposed to _intervene_ if someone’s life was in jeopardy. Not stand by. And _certainly_ not kill someone.” 

“ _Heart attack_.”

“If her hardware is degrading - then we need to turn her off.”

Diego, predictably, explodes. Allison takes Luther’s side - Klaus rambles something about vans, and being _back in the van_.

Vanya puts her head in her hands, fractal darkness from her palms against her eyes all she can see.

It’s just -

Mom was _built_ by Dad. That doesn’t mean she’s not real.

Vanya’s legs were built by Meritech - they’re mechanical, they’re stiff and awkward, and they’re _hers_. They’re _her legs_ and they’re not flesh and blood anymore but they’re a part of her body as much as her hands are. Just different to maintain and clean, new jokes to make. She can detach them in a way she couldn’t before, like taking off her shoes. She hates them. She’s ambivalent towards them.

But if something were to happen to her legs, if they were to be just _gone_ \- 

God, she can’t take another loss like that. She hates them. She desperately needs them to never change. They’re _hers_.

That’s Mom, isn’t it? She’s different, the way she lives is different, but she’s real. And Dad could just - unmake her, remove parts, install boundaries, rip up her code, her _mind_. And she couldn’t _ever_ protest or fight back or set boundaries of her own.

If she did kill Dad -

Well, that’s his own fucking fault, then.

“Hey Luther,” Vanya says into the black of her hands. “Why do you want to kill Mom because you think she may have killed Dad? Like, what is your _problem?_ ”

“It’s not like that - “

Vanya lifts her head out of her hands, glaring as best she can through the fading sparks. “It’s _exactly_ like that, excuse the hell out of you.”

“Hypocrite,” Diego hisses.

It’s weird to be allied with Diego on _anything_. But then, this isn’t about either of them, is it?

“I’m with them,” Klaus says. “Because _screw_ you.”

“This isn’t a vote!”

“Well, it’s a vote now. And it’s three to two.” Diego sneers.

“Then it’s not complete.” Allison cuts in. “Five isn’t here. The whole family has to vote, we owe each other that.”

“We are not _voting_ about _killing Mom!_ ” Vanya shrills, and - to her horror - her voice breaks, tears burn her eyes.

Total, horrified, absolute silence from her siblings. Vanya sniffs wetly. Tears roll down her cheeks and drip off her chin.

“Luther!” Allison snaps, smacking his stomach with the back of her hand.

“Nice going, jagweed.” Diego sneers.

“What did _I_ do?” he blusters.

“Oh no, okay,” Klaus soothes, sliding next to Vanya on the chaise lounge and gripping her shoulders. “Don’t cry Vanya, oh - Luther look at what you did! Okay, come on Vanya. Let’s go - uh, where’s the alcohol?”

“How is this my fault?” Luther demands, panicked.

She shakes her head, inhaling wetly. God, she _hates_ this. “My pills - they, they intera - act.”

“Oh no, my only coping mechanism. Let’s go see if there’s any ice cream in the freezer, okay?”

\---

Mom makes them cookies, cinnamon chocolate chip. Mom always makes cookies when they’re upset, smiling and promising Vanya that it’s going to be okay darling. She makes them cookies, and excuses herself to finish up a cross stitch.

Vanya feels sick, doesn’t want to even think about Mom not being here anymore with her smiles and skirts and kind-hearted sweetness. Poor Mom

Klaus turns the cookies into the ‘bread’ for ice cream sandwiches, which proceeds to melt the ice cream all over their fingers because fresh baked cookies are _hot_ , Klaus.

Vanya feels a lot better after watching Klaus trying to get two cookie and cream sandwiches into his mouth at one time. Except for the burning shame of crying in front of her siblings - that she could do without.

It’s good. It’s sweet, and the kitchen smells like cookies. She isn’t alone.

(the bitterness that has lived in her chest for the past six years lingers in the aftertaste of the sugar)

(this isn’t when she needed you, this isn’t when she needed help)

(but that is an ungrateful thought)

“What the hell is that?” Vanya asks, glancing up at the sudden racket upstairs. 

“Construction outside?” Klaus offers. “Hey, we’re almost out of vanilla but there’s some orange sherbert in here - “

“Orange sherbert is not going to mix with cinnamon and chocolate chip cookies.”

“True,” Klaus deflates. “Oh, but we could just eat it like boring peons.”

More rattling bangs.

“Sounds like a jackhammer,” Vanya says, looking up at the ceiling. “Coming from inside?”

“It’s probably just Allison and Luther getting it on,” Klaus says, punctuating the statement with a pointed eyebrow waggle and a few pelvic thrusts. 

“Don’t be crude,” she snorts. “And there’s no way that’s a sex noise. It sounds like construction equipment.”

Klaus sighs loudly, draping himself like a princess in a film over the kitchen counter. “Yeah, yeah I know,” he says, not to her. “Okay, come on. Let’s go figure out what the hell our siblings are up to now. And without us! So rude.”

“Mm! Hold on, I need to wash my hands. Make me a bowl of that sherbert?”

They creep through the house, a bowl of orange sherbert in their hands. It’s weirdly quiet, punctuated by the increasingly loud metallic rattling that Vanya tentatively thinks might be Luther losing his mind and trying to get through the concrete floor of the basement.

“It’s not bad,” says Klaus, sucking on his spoon and grinning at her. “But we all know the best ice cream is mint chip.”

“Heathen.”

They duck into the lobby. “Hello?” Vanya calls. “Luther? Allison?”

“Is everyone okay? Why is it so dusty in here?” Klaus calls, sniffling. “Hell, what happened?”

The sitting room is - destroyed, there’s no better word for it. The furniture has pieces missing, one of the tables is collapsed. Reginald’s portrait is full of holes. 

Klaus drops his bowl of sherbert, spilling sugary orange melt over the filthy carpet “Oh, fuck - Vanya, Vanya we have to go - “

“What?” Vanya asks and then there’s movement -

Klaus pulls her back bare moments before a fucking _flail_ carves up the air where her head would have been. Her feet tangle- he shoves her behind him. Vanya crashes down on top of the broken table.

“Get away from her!” Klaus shouts at a man in a business suit and a blue bear halloween mask wielding a flail that’s in the goddamn sitting room for some reason.

Vanya _can’t stand up from the ground on her own_. She doesn’t have _knees_ or _balance_. She watches helplessly as the man hits Klaus full on with the flail.

Klaus hits the ground and doesn’t get up. Blood begins to soak the carpet.

“Klaus?” she breathes. The man advances on her, flail raised -

Vanya kicks up with her right leg, taking the blow against the flat of her titanium shin. The light metal crumples like foil clenched in a fist.

“Oh, fuck,” she hisses. That’s going to be expensive to replace. If it needs replacing, if she gets the opportunity to replace it. _Feel grateful for how much it hurts, because it means you survived_.

This isn’t like a car accident at all.

Vanya scoots back away from the bear-man, flipping onto her stomach to drag herself forward. She can’t use her left leg for this without a knee and her right is so mangled that it can’t -

So she digs her fingers into the carpet and pulls her body along the ground. Slowly, uselessly. But she can’t _not_.

There’s a whistle of the flail coming down before it hits, and Vanya tries to brace - 

_Fuck_ -

The flail hits her on the ditch of her right knee. The pain blinds her white, sharp, Vanya can’t even feel the blood because it runs down where her leg isn’t real and it _hurts_ -

 _It hurts_ -

“Hey,” Luther shouts. “ _Asshole!_ ”

There’s a pause. Vanya waits for the flail to come down on her skull for an aching, infinite second, and then -

The sounds of fighting start up behind her.

Vanya sobs in relief against the filthy carpet. “Klaus?” she croaks. “Klaus, answer me!”

“Vanya?” someone calls - not Klaus. It takes her a pain-drunk moment to place it as Diego, frantic. “Vanya!”

“Over here,” she tells the carpet. “Klaus is hurt.”

Diego’s scuffed black shoes enter her field of vision, disappear. He curses, low and pained.

Vanya, for one, is going to be pissed if she needs more surgery on her legs. She doesn’t even have legs left for surgery, not really.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” he barks. “Luther! Fucking _deal with this!_ ”

When Vanya was waiting for the ambulance after her accident, she was trapped. Upside down, still buckled into her seat, dripping blood on the roof of her car. Alone.

Laboriously, she flips herself over onto her back and stares wide eyed at the ceiling. Her head lolls to the side, eyeing the blood soaking through the carpet around Klaus. There’s still the sounds of fighting - the danger wasn’t over in one

Quick

 _Bang_.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no, i'm not sorry :D
> 
> about the cane - I don't currently use a mobility aide but there was a period of about three years where I used one _constantly_ and I would put face flowers into the little adjustable size notches to make it pretty? It was a lot of fun.
> 
> this is where we begin to REALLY deviate so I hope u enjoy the next chapter i guess?? :D


	5. Alright On Your Own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! few quick notes;
> 
> I am not - the happiest with this chapter? its a transitional chapter, it needed to happen. But I'm still a little but D:  
> Done is better than perfect though, right?
> 
> I am _not_ finished chapter five yet. So there may or may not - likely _not_ \- be a new chapter tomorrow, and I'll likely be posting every couple of days instead of every day like i have been from here on out
> 
> I didn't respond to comments yesterday! i'll do that later tonight/tomorrow
> 
> oh and the chapter switches to Five POV about halfway through! Just a headsup.

By the time it’s over, by the time a paramedic is kneeling over her and Vanya’s realizing that, oh fuck, she’s going to have to come clean she’s going to have to explain what happened to her _legs_ -

Well, she’s mostly worried about Klaus, actually. He hasn’t said anything, only made pained noises. Nobody has told her where he got hit yet. Nobody has told her anything.

_He’s going to be okay_ , Vanya tells herself. She was okay. A car accident has to be worse than getting hit, doesn’t it? As long as it wasn’t his skull - as long as he’s still breathing he’ll be okay.

Won’t he?

The chandelier in the main hall crashed down on Luther when the masked suit man (and his partner? Was there a second one she didn’t see?) fled the Academy. Vanya couldn’t see anything, but she has to assume it wasn’t bad, because he’s talking with the paramedic about Klaus in a low, assured murmur. Diego is dealing with the cops, Allison is -

Allison is holding her hand.

“Really, I’m fine,” Vanya tells her. “You should go see how Klaus is doing.”

“Klaus has Luther,” Allison says stubbornly. “Your leg - “

_My leg was amputated six years ago_ , Vanya thinks, _It’s broken like that because it’s crumpled metal, not because it’s a bad break. I can’t feel it. I’ll never be able to feel it, or anything else to my shin. Ever_.

At least losing a prosthetic has to be easier than an amputation. Even though they’re - it _was_ her leg. The leg she uses - _used_ \- to get from place to place, the leg she took her first-second-third new steps with.

She can cry about it later. She’s going to cry about it later.

God, her _leg_.

“Seriously, Allison.” Vanya blatantly lies right through her fake teeth. “I’m okay.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Vanya.” Allison says “It’s going to be okay - you’re not alone.”

“Allison - “ Vanya shifts, nervous. It makes a line of fire twang from her damaged knee.

“Actually,” the paramedic, a man with a shaved head and dark doe eyes interjects. “I think it’d be best if you went to stand with your brother.”

Vanya watches Allison’s mouth pull down from her place on the floor. It’s an odd angle. “But - “

“Please.” says the paramedic, since it’s not a question.

Allison’s frown deepens, but she obliges and untangles her fingers from Vanya’s sweaty palm. “I’ll be right over there, okay? You just shout if you need me.”

“Sure,” says Vanya. She will not do that. If there’s anything she’s learned, it’s not to need anyone to stick around. “Oh, wait - Five. Does he know what happened?”

Allison pauses. “I’ll figure it out, okay? You just try to relax and let the paramedics do their job.”

“Any other major concerns?” the paramedic asks her.

“No.” Vanya says. “So, uh - you should know I’m a bilateral amputee. That one still has a knee, that’s where the blood is coming from, but there’s no _leg_ to be broken.”

“Oh,” says the paramedic.

“I don’t want my siblings to know,” Vanya says. “We don’t really get on.”

“Well.” says the paramedic. “Let’s get you in the ambulance then, shall we?”

\---

Her knee isn’t broken. The injury itself is actually quite mild - her prosthetic caught some of the damage, preventing the flail from truly crushing the back of her knee and shin. Isn’t that fun? Losing her leg six years ago spared her from losing it now.

Soft tissue damage, black and red bruising from mid thigh to the end of her calf, and a minor strain. Painful, especially given the history of trauma to her right leg, but not serious. She’ll be back up and doing PT in nine to fifteen days, as long as she can secure a new leg. That’s probably quick. Vanya has found, overwhelmingly, that hospitals forget that just because you’re healed a minimum doesn’t mean you’re well enough to work at _better_.

It hurts so much. Vanya makes the nurse repeat the diagnosis twice, because she _knows pain_ , and knows when it’s _bad_. But, apparently, she’s just dramatic. Oversensitive to the state of her legs.

“I think I annoyed the paramedic,” she tells the nurse - a soft faced young man she doesn’t recognize.

“Paramedics are always annoyed,” he tells her. “They see people at their worst moments, right? Kills their social skills.”

She’s not sure what they do with her leg. With any of her legs.

That’s three now that she’s destroyed. Maybe she should start keeping a scoreboard with her siblings - who’s managed to lose the most limbs without dying. She’d _definitely_ ace that one.

What a thing to be extraordinary at.

The damage is so mild - she barely even needs stitches in the punctures, and she got her tetanus boosters after her accident - that she’s allowed to check out only a few hours after checking in.

She calls a taxi and specifies she needs one with storage for a wheelchair, and leaves the hospital a little after midnight. She’ll be using a chair for the foreseeable future, since she can’t use crutches all that well with just her left leg.

It’s only when she wheels into her apartment lobby that she remembers -

The fucking elevator is broken.

“Ah,” the wheels of her borrowed chair squeak as she rocks back. Her wallet was in her bag, left at the Academy, so a motel is out. “Fuck.”

The stairs fail to become less intimidating the longer she stares at them. Biting her lip, Vanya steels herself.

She’s survived worse. And she doesn’t have any pride to choke down left, so she carefully slides out of the borrowed hospital chair and pulls herself over to the stairwell.

One step at a time, she lifts herself on the heel of her hands and sits on the next step up, dragging her legs along with her. It’s slow, painful, dirty work. Dirt and small stones dig into the palm of her hands, and the flexing of her back and abdominal muscles begins to ache before long.

It takes her - a really long time to make it up the first flight, wheelchair sadly abandoned on the platform. Vanya takes a break at the landing and rests her full weight on the wall, shaking the pins and needles out of her hands.

Tomorrow she’ll send another email to the building manager about the elevator. She’ll need to email Piotr and Johanssburg and her students - she’s going to be effectively trapped in her apartment after this. 

Maybe - maybe if she’s lucky, maybe she can beg Five to fetch her groceries, instead of having to call in for a delivery. There’s not much in the way of food at home, because non-perishables add too much weight to her tri-weekly grocery visits.

She hauls herself up the next flight, sweaty and annoyed, and drags herself over to the stairwell door.

She’s lucky her keys are in her jacket and not her messenger bag. She’ll need to call the Academy tomorrow and have someone bring her her things.

Scooting down the hallway is about as undignified as it gets, unfortunately. She’d seal-walk but her shoulders are sore from hauling her body up the stairs and she doesn’t want to bruise her aching right leg dragging it like that.

Dragging herself into her apartment is a relief. Vanya collapses on the rug she uses to wipe her shoes and takes a minute to breathe.

She needs a bath. That’s going to be… interesting. Is she allowed to get stitches wet? And, _fuck_ , she missed - well, two doses of carbamazepine. She probably doesn’t need more painkillers than the codeine she was given at the hospital though.

Just - she needs a minute to lie here. Then she’ll get up. Totally. For sure.

She doesn’t get up. She doesn’t even open her eyes again until there’s a familiar wobble of air warping in on itself whining in her ears. Five’s gasp is sharp. There’s no footsteps. He doesn’t warp out.

Just standing there?

Vanya slits her eyes open. “Five?”

“Oh, shit.” Five’s knees hit her floor. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I’m fine,” she says, pushing his hands away, “Just tired.”

“What _happened_ ,” he repeats. “You weren’t in the hospital - what’s - “

“Oh, I got released.” she says, blinking up at the slightly lighter shadow of Five’s face in the dark of her apartment. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“ _Wasn’t that bad?_ ” Five shrills. Dramatic. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you got released?”

Vanya blinks. Blinks again. It’s really dark. “I don’t - who would I tell?”

There’s a pause. Five’s breathing is harsh and uneven in the dark apartment. 

“Vanya,” he says, voice low and serious. As low and serious as a thirteen year old boy can get. “After your car accident, what happened? Who took care of you?”

“Lots of people,” she says. Meghan, the other trauma nurses whose names she didn’t hold onto, Doctor Greenwood, the surgeon that amputated her legs, Piotr who she still pesters a few times a month, the pretty pharmacist with the purple hair that never asks about her prescriptions, the much grumpier pharmacist who keeps asking why she’s on low efficacy opioids -

“Who drove you home?” Five asks. “Our siblings, who brought you food and sat with you and made sure you weren’t alone - “

“No one,” Vanya tells the dark shape of his face. “They never answered.”

But god, that’s unfair. Isn’t it?

“I mean - “ she rushes to continue, shifting up on her elbows - _ow_ , her back - “It’s not their fault. Allison’s so busy I guess her manager didn’t pass on any messages, and Klaus sold his and I didn’t have Diego’s number or anything. I could have called Luther - but I didn’t. I didn’t want - I was never a member of the Academy, or anything, so I didn’t call. That’s my fault. So it’s okay. I was okay.”

_She’s_ so angry. But Five shouldn’t be.

Five doesn’t say anything. Vanya says too much, can’t seem to stop the words from falling out “The book sold really well at first, and it paid for almost everything. I cleared the rest of the loans a few months ago, so it’s all done now. I handled it, you know? It was okay - I was okay, I didn’t need them, or anyone, or - “

“Vanya,” Five cuts in, voice soft, “You’re crying.”

“No I’m not,” she lies wetly.

“Are,” he says.

“Are not,” she protests.

“Oh, for the love of - “ Five starts, and then there’s boney fingers twisting in her coat and hauling her up and -

His small hands curl against the back of her jacket as he holds her tight.

“I’m going to kill them,” he seethes directly against her ear. “It’s okay, Vanya.”

“I’m getting your sweater all snotty,” she informs him coherently, definitely not through stifled sobs, because _she isn’t crying_. It’s awkward, having her arms hang limply, so she curls them around Five’s shoulders, tangling her fingers in the soft Academy sweater. It’s awkward, that’s all, that’s _all_ -

Her eyes hurt. Her eyes hurt, and she can’t catch a breath because there’s a hot lump in her throat, and she keeps sniffling, and muffling sobs into Five’s tiny shoulder.

“Sorry,” she has to say it on a gasp because she _is_ crying, she is, in the dark, for no good reason. She holds Five tight and sobs against his shoulder.

She is so _bitter_. Like an opiate, dulling the pain and slowing the mind. Bitter, bitter, bitter.

“It’s okay,” Five repeats. “Take your time. I’ve got you.”

“Sorry,” she repeats, “Sorry, sorry, sorry - “

“You’re not alone,” Five says, and she wishes she could believe that.

\---

Five fetches the hospital’s wheelchair for her from the stairwell landing while Vanya curls up in bed, a little bit miserable.

“What do you _mean_ ,” he seethes, hissing like a wet cat “That the elevator broke in _November_.”

“I’m gonna send the building manager another email in the morning,” she informs her pillow dully. Her head hurts, and she’s still leaking slowly from her eyes like a child. “I’ll need to take the chair back tomorrow… and I need to go pick up a prescription, and get my bag from the Academy.” she sniffs. “I’m forgetting something.”

“It can wait until the morning,” Five tells her, like he’s concerned she’s going to find it in herself to get up and be productive. Vanya has never felt less productive in her _life_.

Five snaps another blanket open and allows it to settle over her. The soft one with the tassels, the one she had waiting on the couch in case Five came back. “I’ll take the chair back now and inform the idiots you haven’t been kidnapped before they do something characteristically moronic.”

A bolt of ice cuts into her chest. Vanya lifts her head. “Don’t tell them,” she croaks. “I don’t - I don’t want them to know.”

Five pauses in her doorway. “Vanya - “

“I don’t want them to know,” she repeats. “Please, Five?”

Five’s shoulders slump. “Okay.” he says. “Your secret is safe with me.”

\---

Here’s the thing -

Vanya waited.

There really wasn’t much else to do in those early days in the hospital, still blurry and bleary and more morphine than blood fueling her brain. But later, as she got better, sitting up and gaining strength in her arms so she could maybe transfer herself to a wheelchair on her lonesome one day -

She waited.

The hospital called Allison’s number more than once. More than ten times. Sheryl the desk lady was determined to explain the situation, Meghan had explained (though Vanya hadn’t yet been able to remember her name). She didn’t want Vanya to be alone any more than Vanya did.

But -

Allison never answered her own phone. Vanya still doesn’t know why. Was she busy? Were people bothering her? Was a hospital just unimportant?

In the early days of her recovery, she waited. And waited. And waited.

And the only one of her siblings to visit was Five. Half remembered, twisted from pain and her own failing memory. 

He’d already been gone more than ten years. Vanya’s memory wasn’t kind to him, couldn’t put together a face or a silhouette. Just - the ghost of Five. A shadow of Five. He listened to her cry. He waited in the corner of the room, shapeless, while Vanya tried and failed to lift her arms above her head.

Perhaps it’s not right to say he was the only one to visit - he was never there at all. As real and as kind as her I.V. stand was, as present the haunting melody playing in her ears it took her _weeks_ to place.

(it was Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, second movement)

Hallucinations aside, Meghan aside - the faceless nurses she was perpetually unable to place, Dr. Greenwood and the early physical therapists before she had moved to Piotr’s practice, all those people that kept her alive -

She was alone in that room, in agony, and she _waited_.

She was weaned off morphine, she had her catheter removed and the bags hanging off her I.V. were slowly removed one by one, the splints came off her fingers and she began building strength, she got her memories back in slurry pieces -

And _no one came_.

So no.

She doesn’t want them to know what happened. Doesn’t want her siblings to know what happened, why, when, how much it _hurt_ -

That’s hers. She survived it all on her own.

One day at a time.

\---

“I’m returning this on behalf of Vanya Hargreeves,” Five says with a wide, toothy grin.

It’s not a very nice grin. The attendant thanks him, getting up from her seat immediately to take the chair instead of having him leave it with the others he can see waiting to be cleaned up and taken away.

Errand complete - one less thing to deal with. He doesn’t have _time_ for this, he needs to track down the owner of the fucking eye - needs _Lance_ to reappear and allow Five to break his hands like he told Vanya he would.

But _apparently_ , if _he_ doesn’t _personally_ help Vanya with his own _very busy_ hands, then it simply won’t happen.

_They never answered_ , what does that even _mean?_

How _dare_ they.

Five’s strides grow jerky and uneven as he stomps through the hospital halls and falls through infinite space and steps into Klaus’s room.

“Jesus!” 

“Vanya’s fine,” he says shortly, ignoring Allison’s outburst. Klaus is pale and wan on the bed, but his heartbeat is steady and he’s breathing entirely on his own. There’s no reason for Allison and Luther to cluster by his bedside like he’s due to perish at the weighing of a feather.

Like Vanya, laying on the ground by her door, black hair under her head like a halo of blood. Only she was just exhausted from crawling up the stairs, because her building manager can’t be assed to do his job. Hazel and Cha-Cha didn't find her, she’s okay.

Or like the Vanya he didn’t see, dying in pieces, living by inches.

Alone. She was _alone_ , and that - that’s not okay. If he thinks about it too long his vision tints with red and he’s too _busy_ for _anger_.

“Oh thank god,” Allison sighs, head tipping back. “What happened? The secretary wouldn’t tell me anything.”

_And you didn’t just Rumour her?_ he wonders, frowning. “She was released,” he says, clipped. “She went home. Where’s Diego?”

“He knows the detective working our case, he went to go talk to her.” Luther says. Oh, he and Allison are holding hands. Of course they are. “What do you mean she went home? Her leg - “

“Are you a doctor, Luther?” Five hisses. _She doesn’t have legs, you inconsiderate jackass. You should know this._ “She was cleared. She went home. End of story.”

“You can’t talk to him like that,” Allison protests. “What the hell _happened?_ Her leg was _shattered_.”

“Maybe,” he says, voice cold and furious. Klaus doesn’t twitch, good, whatever plates and pins he has in his shoulder now shouldn’t be moved. “You should ask her yourself next time.”

He clips out of the hospital room before either of his siblings can protest, toes touching nothing, touching linoleum, padding softly through the linoleum hospital halls. He has things to do. Things that, evidently, no one else will do.

Five sighs. Then he gets to work.

\---

He thought she was dead.

Is the thing. He thought she was dead. The nurse came out to tell them - tell Diego in particular, since Diego is Klaus’s emergency contact - that Klaus was out of surgery and they could go and sit with him while he wheezed, unconscious in a room somewhere.

“But what about Vanya,” Five had said. The nurse insisted she couldn’t give out any information to him, because he wasn’t listed as next of kin. Wouldn’t admit there was a Vanya Hargreeves admitted at all.

Luther had knocked on his window and said Vanya was hurt. Luther had taken him to the hospital, because he knew which one Vanya and Klaus were being treated at. Luther hadn’t had any information at all on what was wrong.

(Why would he be worried about Vanya’s leg?)

(It’s sort of too late, isn’t it?)

But Luther had said she was hurt and she was here, so here she _must_ be.

(It’s his fault, isn’t it? Hazel and Cha-Cha - he should have dealt with them before they realized he had people they could hurt in his stead)

Only -

Flickering through the E.R. didn’t reveal her. Visiting the surgical wing, no Vanya. Gazing into the operating rooms - everyone was gowned and hidden behind surgical drapes, so he couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t see her there, either. 

And then -

Her _apartment_ -

Vanya lying on the ground by her door, sprawled out, leg missing. A dark shadow pooling by her skull, hands that would never tease a melody out of a violin again limp and curled spiderlike.

Hazel and Cha-Cha had found her after all.

And Five was -

But she wasn’t dead.

She wasn’t dead.

(he had to leave her crying alone, but that happens sometimes)

(he’ll apologize later)

\---

When he returns in the morning, coffee and food sourced from Starbucks like before - Vanya had seemed to like it - Vanya has already moved from the bed to the couch and curled up with Delores.

Five pauses in her windowsill. Still unlocked.

“ - Just better than I am,” Vanya is complaining, gesturing with splayed fingers. “But who says that kind of thing? I mean, you don’t even know my name, what makes you think you can tell me I’m not _passionate_ enough, whatever that means. Passion is worth shit - my PT guy says so. What you want is _dedication_.”

“That’s a healthy outlook,” Five can hear Delores respond. Because they’re sitting together, talking. His two favourite people, getting along. “Five is always too reckless - how many times did I say his equations were off? But _no_ , they’re _good enough_ , Delores.”

“Thank you,” Vanya says, patting Delores carefully on her shoulder with two fingers. “See, this is good. Fuck Helen. I bet she can like, tie her shoes by herself, and thinks that's _better_. Well, velcro works just fine, Helen!”

Five snorts softly. “Helen sounds like a dick,” he adds, ignoring Vanya’s startled jump. “I brought food. You need locks for your windows.”

“Five,” Vanya says, flushing. Embarrassed? “Oh, I was just - “

“You take too long,” Delores complains.

“Thank you, Delores.” Five sighs. “I was busy. I brought food.”

They look - nice, curled together on the couch. Vanya has Delores pulled onto her lap, dappling the crown of her skull as she watches him finish climbing through the window. Five could sit next to them - neither of the ladies have a full set of legs and Vanya isn’t wearing her one remaining prosthetic, there’s plenty of room for him on the other side of the couch.

He doesn’t sit. He already lost a full night running errands on behalf of his idiot siblings, he needs to _move_. 

The apocalypse is in twenty days. Less than three weeks, now.

Vanya takes the proffered coffee cup in her long fingers. “ _Sarah_ ,” she reads. “Are you on a mission to steal Starbucks from unsuspecting girls?”

Five flushes.

“Oh my god.”

“Shut up and take your egg sandwich. You did like it last time, right?”

“I did. Thank you, Five.” she smiles, and it’s genuine. Five thinks it’s genuine. God knows he wields a smile like a weapon.

Her face is still splotchy and swollen. Five looks away before he can let on that he’s staring -

“It’s rude,” Delores reminds him.

“Thank you, dear.” he says. “I can’t stay. I need to - “ _Murder Hazel and Cha-Cha, kill our siblings - or maybe just maim them a little - find Lance before he can weasel away again_ , “Take care of things.

“Oh,” says Vanya. And it’s such a small noise, crestfallen.

Five inhales his coffee. Goddamn it. “First, though,” he says, making himself sit on the edge of the coffee table. “Are you okay?”

It pays off, even though sitting irks at him, chewing on the back of his spine like a rat with a charred ulna. Vanya perks up at the attention, shifting so Delores is sitting up on her own.

“A shame,” Delores says. “She’s very soft.”

“I’m okay,” Vanya lies like she always does. “I’m just worried about Klaus. And Mom.”

Of course she is. Would she leave their siblings alone in a hospital room, he wonders? Even now? Probably not.

Five hums. “Well, Klaus is fine - he has some new hardware in his shoulder, but it doesn’t sound all that serious - “ _maybe a little serious, but he’s keeping the arm so it’s not really a lie if it’s to Vanya_ “And I haven’t heard anything about Grace. I don’t think Hazel and Cha-Cha would target her.”

Vanya relaxes against the couch, creases smoothing out across her forehead. That, at least, is dealt with.

“Luther was talking about killing her,” Vanya admits, rubbing at her bicep. “Why would they do that? I kind of - the conversation was shut down for the night, but I don’t know.”

Five raises a brow. “That’s - weird.” Is that what the family meeting was regarding, then? Shutting down Grace?

All the better he skipped it, then. Waste of time. 

Vanya nods. “Luther is _convinced_ her hardware is degrading, and she killed Dad somehow. But why would we _kill her_ for that? There has to be a way for her to get better.”

Five raises the other brow.

“I wouldn’t want my legs to be taken away just because they’re mechanical,” Vanya defends. mulish. “I mean - well, I just lost one. They’re still my legs. Leg. And Mom is still Mom.”

Five grins, crooked. “Right. Hypothetically - and in no way related to the current conversation - is that why parts of your fridge are duct-taped together?”

“Ass,” Vanya pouts. “It’s a good fridge.”

“Objectively, that is not true.” Five smirks. “Does it even chill your perishables enough to count as a fridge?”

“Just because it’s falling apart doesn't mean it’s not _good!_ ” Vanya protests. “I don’t - it would be _rude_ to throw it away. It just needs some care.”

_The fridge?_ he wants to say, and doesn’t. There’s an odd wobble in her voice he doesn’t like - Vanya shouldn’t cry, especially not because of _Five_. That’s not allowed. He forbids it.

So instead, he glances back towards the window. _Kindness, Five. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?_

He has. He changes the subject, instead. “There’s some follow-up I need to do regarding the eye. Will you be alright on your own for a while?”

He flickers his gaze back to his girls. Vanya’s face has softened. “Of course. Just - come back soon, alright?”

“Don’t leave us waiting,” Delores sing-songs. “We’ll be here.”

“Oh, and - if you could.” Vanya adds. “I left my things at the Academy yesterday. My bag.”

“Of course,” Five nods. _More things to do_. “I’ll deal with it.”

_It’s a quick errand_ , Five tells himself as he warps out of the apartment and picks his way down the filthy street silently. _You can’t delegate, here. Vanya is trusting you with her secrets. You have to keep them_.

He just needs to complete his tasks. Eye, bag, Commission. Simple.

He’ll be back before long.

He still needs to apologize for leaving her.

\---


	6. Who This Is All About

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> technically this was ready to go yesterday but i was out of the house all day _sob_
> 
> please enjoy! i know i haven't responded to comments rip but i will in fact do that throughout the day :3
> 
> anyway im!! look at these plot points occurring hell yeah! there's a couple of pov changes right at the start - honestly i probably could have taken them out but i had already written the words and i know as a reader i'm always up for More Scenes even if it mangles the flow a little so i left them in.
> 
> uh - mildish emetophobia warning? it's not graphic by any means but there is some vomiting.

Vanya is no stranger to her life being suddenly upended by a setback in her treatment. Back spasms crippling her ability to stand and walk were more common than not when she first started walking places on her own two feet, cancelling appointments, forcing her publisher to meet her in her cluttered little shoebox apartment.

After Five leaves for his _errands_ \- whatever they may be - Vanya climbs back into her wheelchair and makes a few phone calls. She needs someone to cover her lessons, and to book an appointment with Piotr and to call Leonard.

The last one is the least important, and the most nervewracking.

“ _Hello?_ ”

“Leonard,” she says, twirling the phone cord around her index finger. Her leg is aching all the way down to the toes that aren’t there anymore, but she wants to get this over with before taking her pills and lying down. “Hi. It’s Vanya.”

“ _Vanya_ ,” Leonard's voice warms immediately, even over the crackling of her old phone connection. “ _Hi! I was hoping you’d call_.”

“Yeah,” she huffs a laugh. She’s nervous - bees in her belly. “I uh - I just wanted to - “ she sighs “I can’t go to dinner tonight, or anything. Or tomorrow.”

“ _Oh?_ ” is she imagining the disappointment? “ _Oh, well - we can delay it, if you want - I mean, if you changed your mind that’s fine, I’m just saying I’m okay with waiting_ \- “

“No! No, it’s not - it’s not that.” Vanya pauses. “It’s uh - I’m kind of trapped in my apartment at the moment.”

She needs to finish that damn email. If she has to spend the next few weeks with only a mannequin (and maybe? Five?) to talk with, she may go insane. Insaner.

“ _Are you okay?_ ”

“Yeah! Oh, you sound worried - no, it’s fine. I’m fine. I’m just - Okay so you know how I use a cane?”

“ _Yeah?_ ”

“Well, I uh - I hurt my leg yesterday, so I’m using a wheelchair for the - well, the foreseeable future. I don’t have the income for a new prosthetic,” Vanya sighs. She needs to figure something out about that, and _soon_. “And the elevator in my place is broken - getting up the stairs was _not fun_ , let me tell you. So.”

“ _Oh_ ,” there’s a long pause “ _Well - not to be too forward or anything, but if you’d like, maybe I could come over? Bring some takeout - or, I’m told I make a mean baked mac and cheese? No pressure if you’d rather be alone - I totally get it._ ”

Oh. Well - maybe a _little_ forward. A little fast, coming over when she’s so - But then, Leonard has already been to her apartment. Just a different context. It’s not _that_ different, not really.

“You know,” she says. “I think I’d like that.”

“ _Yeah?_ ”

“Yeah.” Vanya nods. Yes, she has decided. She will be - brave. Piotr will like it, taking initiative. “Maybe just the take out though - I, uh. I don’t have much in my fridge.”

“ _Oh - well, I could pick up a few things for you?_ ”

“No, that’s fine,” Vanya shakes her head. That’s a little overbearing to ask, she thinks, of a man she barely knows. A little much. “One of my brothers is helping me out, I’m gonna ask him.”

Hopefully Five won’t mind. She’s been asking a lot of him lately - crying on his shoulder even.

Selfish of her.

But she needs to eat. And food delivery services are - mediocre at best, and rarely bring the groceries actually up to her apartment, and she finds the food she gets is either very unripe or too overripe or near the due date or oddly substituted -

Of course, if Five is too busy - she’ll make things work. She’s not going to overburden him.

Maybe she shouldn’t ask in the first place?

Vanya sighs. “I am going in circles,” she informs the crack in her plaster. She shifts the receiver back to her mouth “See you later?” 

“ _Yeah. Around six?_ ”

“Okay.” and Vanya finds herself smiling, just a little. “See you then.”

So that’s - something.

\---

Five warps into Lance’s car just as he’s pulling the door shut.

“Hi,” he says, smiling with all his teeth. Lance jumps like he’s discovered a feral axe murderer in the backseat.

Not inaccurate.

The knife unfolds with a clean _snick_ , Five’s left hand catching Lance’s collar before he can jerk towards the door, pulling him forward against the point.

Five is still smiling. He locks gazes with Lance, crinkling the corner of his eyes in something a lot worse than warmth. He misses the inherent terror that an adult white male with a gun strikes in people's hearts, but Lance is a middle-aged white male as well. It wouldn’t work nearly as well. 

So, rabid schoolboy it is. It’s sort of fun, in moments like this, even if the sheer _panic_ of it sort of dulls the cooperativeness of his victims.

“One chance,” Five hisses, leaning closer. He’s still smiling. “ _One_ chance, that’s all you’ve got, to be _useful_ to me. Or I’m going to leave the contents of your vascular system on your dashboard, are we clear?”

Lance twitches like he’s going to nod, the knife pinpricking his swollen neck. Five presses it just a little harder against his delicate skin.

“I know you sell prosthetics under the table,” Five continues, smooth with a sharp edge. “I know you keep records. I _need_ those records, Lance. And if you try to bullshit me - ” Five allows the threat to hang in the air.

Lance doesn’t try to bullshit.

“I - I don’t have it!” he splutters. “I mean - not on me! Not on me, oh god - the only copy is in my safe, at the lab!”

Five squints, pressing the knife harder. “Well, you start the car, then.” His smile ticks up higher on the edges of his mouth. “‘Cause we’re - “

The back door of the car opens. Five turns with a snarl. Who fucking _dares_ -

“Jeeze,” Allison says, climbing into the back seat. “Klaus said you were turning rabid.”

Five levels her with an unimpressed look. “Start the car, Lance.”

“But - “

“ _Now!_ ” Blood beads along the sharp edge of the knife.

Lance scrambles to start the car. Five doesn’t give him the courtesy of moving the knife away, still glaring at Allison.

She doesn’t look much like the little girl he remembers, or the movie star she became. Her eyes are swollen and she’s ashy along the high points of her cheekbones. No makeup - even her hair is a mess, loosely pulled back in a ponytail.

Up all night watching over Klaus, he supposes, angry all over again. Five is perfectly happy to be pissed about six or seven things all at the same time.

“What do you want,” Five hisses.

“Oh, I _wonder_.” Allison laughs, “First, how about the fact that the Academy was invaded last night? Klaus needed surgery - and none of us know what happened to Vanya, because you won’t tell us where she is? Not to mention Diego is missing - “

“You can ask Vanya how she is,” Five says, enunciate every syllable with the points of his teeth. “Herself. You know, if you even know what her phone number is.”

Allison flinches. Of course she doesn’t. More importantly -

“And - what do you mean Diego is missing?”

“I mean he’s missing.” Allison sighs. “Luther called the police station earlier for an update - you know, Diego was going to harass the cops? Detective Patch said that Diego never showed up.” Allison sighs. “What is going _on_ , Five? Those assholes were asking for _you_ last night.”

Five frowns. Hazel and Cha-Cha. Maybe. Maybe. Diego is - sharp, bristly. Not a good captive.

If they’ve taken Diego - and he’d thought they’d come for Vanya -

He might have to bump them up his to do list. 

“First,” he says, slow, “Lance here is going to do me a couple of favours. Then - “ he sighs. “We’ll call a family meeting.” _Because the rest of you are just so useful_.

“And Diego?” 

Five bristles. “Why are you asking _me?_ ” Are _none_ of his siblings capable of walking down the street without Five holding their hands? “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been back in your time for less than a week. You’d think the rest of you would have kept better track of one another after I disappeared. Wherever the hell he went off too, I’m sure he’ll turn up.”

Diego will be fine. He’s probably out chasing skirts at a bar, or beating up petty criminals or -

Five inhales. Being tortured.

“Five - “

“I will help you _after_ , Allison. Lance and I have some unfinished business.”

Diego will be _fine_. 

\---

“Number Five, where is he?” the woman demands. The garrotte cuts into him, sharp pain where he can feel blood welling up against the taut cable. He’s shaking - every muscle in his body tensed at once against the tightening noose around his neck, already exhausted from being beaten.

Diego rolls his eyes behind closed lids. He wonders how long it will take them to realize he doesn’t need to breathe.

“You ready to talk?” she barks, and the wire - no, cable, it’s not really cutting him - goes slack. Diego does his best to cough and splutter, gasping for air he doesn’t really need.

As long as they think asphyxiation bothers him, they won’t go back to hitting or cutting or -

 _Needles, think needles_ , Diego reminds himself, gasping out a thready “I don’t know - I don’t know where he i- is.”

“Bullshit,” snaps the man, cuffing him across the back of his head. Fucking rude.

“L- listen,” Diego forces out. Should he be croaking? People usually cough after they’ve been strangled, right? Or is that just in the movies? “I d- don’t know w- w- where Five is. He doesn’t fucking t- talk to us.”

He pulls at the duct tape binding his forearms to the chair again. Bastards must have wrapped it five or six times around - there’s still no give. Coward’s work, tying him to a chair after tasing him unconscious. The burn on his neck hurts more than the sting of the garotte.

 _Needles, needles, needles_ , Diego shivers. “F- f- fucking gets back and just l- leaves, doesn’t tell us _shit_ ,” he coughs. “I don’t know _w- where_.”

“Bullshit,” snaps the man again, also hitting him again. Fucking _lame_. Don’t these two know the key to torture is to mix it up every so often?

Except he’s a little overeager on condemning their originality. “Let’s waterboard him,” the woman says. Point one for doing something else, minus a point for it still being asphyxiatory. Minus fifty, because Diego _doesn’t need to breathe_. Dumbasses.

He still shakes when the cloth covers his nose and mouth. He just needs to hang in there - he’ll figure a way out of here soon.

He’ll get out of this. For sure.

He just needs a bit more time to figure it out.

\---

Vanya starts throwing up about a half hour after taking her carbamazepine, barely energetic enough to hang onto the toilet bowl.

It happens. The doe-eyed nurse had said it would be fine to take tramadol until her pain became more manageable, but she should keep an eye out for interactions. Not likely to happen, he said, but there were a few slightly more common ones she should know about.

Like nausea and fatigue. Right now - her leg a solid lump of pain, right down to her not-real toes, spiralling through her once-fractured spine - she feels so exhausted that she could pass out like this, half-slumped against the toilet, and simultaneously so achingly sick to her stomach that she wants to cry.

Didn’t even kill the pain. The flail-bruise _hurts_.

She took her pills with food and water, like she’s supposed to. The last slightly-stale blueberry muffin and a glass of filtered tap water. So it’s not her - she’s a _good patient_. It’s definitely the pills.

“This is,” she informs her toilet blearily. “The _third time_ I’ve asked about drug interactions, been told _no_ , and spent all night yartzing for it. The _third_ time. Wait, not - not _all night_ , it’s the afternoon. Hold it together. C’mon Vanya.”

The toilet, predictably, does not respond. She feels very judged.

The lights above her mirror flicker. Vanya spits sour bile into the toilet. “Five?”

“Here,” says Five from somewhere in her cramped little living room. “Where are you?”

Vanya would answer, but she’s suddenly busy trying to evacuate her spleen out through her esophagus. She’s fairly sure the sound of her retching answers Five regardless, because the door to the bathroom opens with a squeal.

“Hey,” she says, coughing. 

“Hey,” says Five. “Are you contagious?”

Vanya snorts. “ _Ow_. No. The painkillers the hospital gave me didn’t agree with my stomach.”

“Oh. In that case,” Five drops onto the cold tile next to her. He taps her twice on the shoulder with his index finger. “There, there.”

Vanya snorts. She’s just exhausted enough to find Five’s awkwardness endearing. “How’d things go?”

She’s not looking in Five’s direction, but she can feel him perk up. “The eye in question belongs to a man named Harold Jenkins. No phone number or address, unfortunately, but it’s a start.”

“Oh good.” Vanya considers herself. “I don’t think I’m going to throw up again.”

“Good,” says Five right before Vanya throws up again.

“Ow,” she whimpers.

“Okay,” says Five. “Well that’s disgusting. Is there anything I can do to make that not happen?”

“I could use some water?” Vanya croaks, “I really should be done soon.”

“And if you’re not?” Five calls, already sweeping out of the bathroom. “Hello, Delores. I like the new shirt.”

“I call my general practitioner and tell them the E.R. fucked up again.” Vanya spits. “And I figured she might have gotten tired of wearing the same thing.”

The phone rings sharply while Five pours her a glass of water. “I’ll get it.” he says. “Hello? No, this is her brother. What do you want?”

Vanya winces.

“I’m not sure what kind of take out Vanya likes, why do you care? I don’t think so. No.”

“Is that Leonard?” Vanya calls.

“No, you must be hearing things, Vanya is resting. You aren’t wanted.”

“ _Five_.”

“Go away,” he says, and hangs up.

Vanya sighs.

\---

Sitting on the couch is a reasonable achievement as far as Vanya is concerned. She’ll try for ‘eating food’ later, once she’s sure she won’t yartz again.

“I’m supposed to take another carbamazepine in an hour but I think I will actually die so instead we’re going to piss off my general practitioner,” she says. “Thank you for the water.”

Five _hmm_ ’s. “Yikes,” he says. “Moving past the horror that is existing, evidently,”

Vanya snorts. Five has no idea - she’s so tired she’s not convinced they’re even having this conversation.

Of course, if she was sleeping, she wouldn’t be tired. Probably.

“Harold Jenkins must somehow be involved with the end of the world.” Five continues “Harold Jenkins has a prosthetic eye. Harold Jenkins is - somewhere. And we need to find him.”

“He has brown eyes,” Vanya adds. “Which narrows it down a little.”

If Vanya is being honest -

She still hasn’t been able to wrap her head around the end of the world. It just doesn’t make _sense_. The sheer amount of damage that even _she_ could survive - someone so ordinary, so mousy and weak - was _tremendous_. That everyone in the _entire world_ could just be gone -

No, she doesn’t understand it. It just doesn’t make sense.

Five does, though. He’s not the boy she remembers leaving breakfast early and never returning - _something_ happened, no matter how catastrophic it truly was. How catastrophic she can comprehend it being, whatever _it_ is.

He needs her help. That much she can do.

Five concedes the point. “A little, yes, thank you Vanya. For the sake of expediency, let’s assume that Jenkins is already within the city. If I could access census data - or just police records...”

“I think Diego knows a cop?” Vanya offers hesitantly.

Five claps his fist into his palm. “Right! Diego is missing. We’re meeting Luther and Allison in Klaus’s room in - an hour.”

“Wait, what?”

“We should leave now, actually.” Five peers out of Vanya’s window. “I always forget how long driving takes when you have to follow traffic laws.”

“What?” Vanya twists, watching Five collect a series of nonsensical items from her counters “Five, what do you mean _Diego_ is _missing?_ I can’t leave, I have a date.”

Oh god, Leonard. She is even _less_ charming than usual.

“I cancelled for you, obviously.” Five says. “It’s possible Hazel and Cha-Cha are involved. Klaus hasn’t been released from the hospital yet, so we’re convening there.”

“ _We?_ ” Vanya splutters. Her head is spinning. “ _What?_ Five, I don’t - “

“ _We_.” Five says, levelling her with a glare. Vanya would appreciate it more if she wasn’t about two too-long blinks from passing out on the couch. “Will be arranging the next nineteen days with our siblings, because the world ending is more important than anything else at the moment.”

“I _can’t_.” Vanya says. “Five, my leg - “ 

Five gazes critically at her. “The wheelchair is easy enough to explain as a broken leg.” he says. “If we put enough blankets over your legs I’m sure our siblings won’t so much as notice.”

“I can’t _get out of the apartment_ , Five.” Vanya says. “Look, I’m sorry - a stairwell is basically a deathtrap right now.”

Five pauses - like he’s forgotten, like the mundane task of getting to the ground floor was so insignificant as to be unplanned for, even though he knew she was down a leg. Vanya used to be like that, too. Now, getting in and out of the apartment is one of the hardest parts of her days, even when she’s on both feet. It’s why she only does it once.

Instead - his first instinct was to protect her secret.

That’s -

Well, it’s sweet. Vanya would appreciate it more if she wasn’t trapped in her apartment.

Except he says “I’ll carry you. Obviously. I often assist Delores with getting around.”

“Five - “ Vanya starts. _Is it flattering to be compared to his mannequin-wife? Or am I insulted. Both?_ “It would be _easier_ if I were to stay behind.”

Which has always been true. It’s just -

Vanya knows it too, now. She can’t even get out of her apartment. She can barely stay awake - can’t even take the pills she was given without making herself sick.

But Five is giving her a dry, unimpressed look. “We aren’t children anymore.” he says. “Just because you aren’t bodily going to deal with Hazel and Cha-Cha doesn’t mean you aren’t involved. And besides - I” he pauses. “I need you there.”

And -

What is Vanya supposed to say to that?

\---

Five carries her bridal style down the stairs, cursing out the building manager the whole time. It’s more than a little humiliating - Vanya _isn’t_ a child, and she hasn’t been helpless in a while, and it _aches_ to have to be lifted down the stairs like an infant - and the jerking of his footsteps makes her stomach lurch. He’s very scrawny, his shoulder sharp against her cheek - a thirteen year old boy in body, hauling what’s left of her down a concrete stairwell.

She manages not to vomit on his Academy shoes. So that’s something.

He warps up to fetch her wheelchair, leaving her propped up against the wall. “Sorry,” he says, and disappears. He reappears, unfolding her chair. “This is the same model the hospitals use.”

“A good wheelchair is expensive,” she says. It’s not _exactly_ the same model, but it’s close. “I had enough to pay off - I don’t use it that much.”

Five hums, but stands to the side as she lifts herself into the chair. His hands are half raised, like he wants to offer her assistance but knows she’s sore about needing it.

“You’re not bringing Delores?” Vanya asks, glancing up at Five’s jaw as she wheels herself to the exit.

He frowns. There’s a now-familiar twist of air, and Five reappears cradling Delores in his arms.

Vanya had taken it upon herself to clean the mannequin up and replace her filthy shirt with one of her slightly too small white blouses from before the accident. She’s put on a bit of both fat and muscle since then, particularly along her shoulders. So Five just looks like a theatre kid carrying around a prop doll instead of an unhinged child with a filthy mannequin.

He leads her to a black plumbers van. There are problems with this, namely -

“I can’t drive,” Vanya says.

“Yes, I know, I’ll be driving.” he says.

“Five, we’re going to get pulled over.”

“Nah,” says Five.

Vanya pulls herself into the passenger seat. Five puts her wheelchair in the back, and then Delores into the wheelchair before climbing into the drivers side.

“I’m going to throw up,” she warns Five.

“Gross,” he says, rolling down her window.

\---

Vanya is able to hold off the mortal terror that plagues her every time she enters a vehicle by screwing her eyes shut and humming to block out the sounds of traffic, clinging to the handle by the window so tightly her fingers refuse to uncurl fully when she tries to get out. Five explains the concept of emergence theory in twelve-syllable words loudly the whole trip, his voice an even rattle.

“You didn’t throw up,” he says, flicking open a blanket. 

“I did not,” she agrees. 

They burrito her waist to hide her missing leg - half a leg? Her left prosthetic providing enough structure to the blanket folds to hide her missing foot.

“Sorry,” Vanya apologizes as they wait for the elevator to take them to the third floor. Five keeps watching the exits, unfamiliar with this part of the hospital. “I know - getting around like this is pretty time consuming.”

Five shrugs. “If we get lost, I can try and warp us directly to Klaus’s room.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

“I fail to understand how any of this is your fault, and not the result of malevolent design.” Five says. “What would you do if your apartment caught fire?”

“Call 911 and let them know I was there.” Vanya says. “You’re getting off topic.”

The elevator arrives with a soft ding. The doors open. There are some six or seven people sardined into the cramped space, and absolutely no room is left for Vanya’s chair. Five could probably weasel in, if he wanted, but he’d have to leave Delores with her.

Five smiles thinly, and makes no move to enter. One of the strangers hits the _close door_ button, and Vanya waits a moment before pressing the button to summon a new elevator. She rests her head in her hands. Chemical exhaustion and humiliation twist in her head.

Five go anywhere, instantly, and Vanya needs to be carried down the stairs. That’s the difference between them, isn’t it?

“I’m not angry with you for requiring aid to get around the city,” Five says softly. “I can imagine you find yourself more regularly frustrated with that fact than I am.”

“So patient,” she says to her knees.

“Not really.” he says. “However, I was the one who insisted you come to this meeting in the first place and disregarded your concerns.”

Vanya glances up at him from between splayed fingers. “Right. You’d be like this for everyone.”

“Absolutely not.”

The next elevator arrives. There’s barely enough room for Vanya to eke her chair into, and not enough for her to turn around. When they reach the third floor Five has to slip out and guide her chair out backwards so she doesn’t run into the sides of the elevator.

“Okay, so I think it’s this way - “ Five says.

Klaus’s room, is in fact, not that way. Or this way. Or maybe even thataway? Though it may have been over that way, but there was a stairwell down; they would have to navigate into a little half-floor before ascending another on the far side.

They arrive to the meeting more than forty-five minutes late.

“Why are hospitals built like this,” Five complains. “Why are there so many _stairwells_ and _mystery hallways_.”

“Imagine doing this on opiates,” Vanya says. “Once I got lost trying to find a bathroom after drinking six cups of water for an ultrasound.”

“Yikes.”

Allison is standing with her arms crossed over her chest, whirling to face them as Five pulls the door open, accusations already on her tongue. They don’t make it to words before she goes pale, staring down at Vanya.

“Sorry,” says Vanya, expertly tucking herself into a corner. “We had some trouble figuring out how to get here.”

“Goddamn _surprise stairwells_ ,” Five mutters.

Klaus has a nice set up - a private room with actual walls and blinds over the window. Vanya had spent six days in a curtained off hallway with twelve other miserable bastards towards the end and it just about drove her insane.

Klaus himself doesn’t look very good. He’s pale, an I.V. snaking into the crook of his right elbow. His hair is sweaty and matted against his forehead, eyes bright with pain, one of his arms in a sling and his shoulder covered in white bandaging.

“They aren’t giving you the good stuff?”

“Nah,” he laughs, high and thin. “Not with all the track marks on my forearms. How about you?”

“As it turns out, Tramadol interacts with my pills.” Vanya says. “So I spent about an hour and a half trying to disembowel myself through my mouth.

“Fun.”

“Are you okay?” Allison asks, staring at Vanya - at her wheelchair, at the hidden line of her legs.

“Obviously,” Five snaps before Vanya has to come up with a staggered lie. “Now, shall we get on with it? I have things to do.”

“Hold on,” says Luther. “You’re the one who this is all about, right?”

Five sighs.

“Fine,” he says. “If I must.”

\---

Five left a lot out, when he said _I found nothing at the end of the world_.

He didn’t say he had to survive there.

He didn’t say he stayed there.

(alone)

\---

Allison is sitting on the edge of Klaus’s bed, slumped over. Luther is resting his head in his huge hands, like he can’t bear to hold it up. Klaus has lost impossibly more colour from his pale skin.

Vanya is trying to not fall asleep. She’s not sure what time it is, but she’s not feeling up to taking her meds yet. She probably should.

 _Irresponsible behaviour_ , she thinks, and doesn’t take them. 

“We died,” Luther says finally.

“Yes, that happens sometimes.” Five says, snippy. “Whoever this Harold Jenkins is, he must be the key.”

“Oh, is that what that eye was about?” Klaus slurs. “Woo! Go team forty-five.”

Five opens his mouth to say something cutting, but stops. He looks over to her. And then he says. “Yes, Klaus, you were _so helpful_.” like he needs to chew through glass before making the words.

“We all died and you didn’t tell us this _before?_ ” Luther snaps. “Five, we could have been - doing _something_ , I don’t know - “

“And interrupt your crusade against our father’s mystery murderer? I had all the help I needed,” Five snaps. “Vanya happens to be the only one of you I trust. And maybe the idiot over there.” he adds grudgingly. “On occasion.”

“That’s _mister_ idiot.” Klaus says.

“So - when I told you Diego was missing,” Allison says. Vanya frowns - when had they spoken? While Five was out?

“If he hasn’t turned up by now,” Five confirms grimly. “It’s likely Hazel and Cha-Cha are torturing him for information.”

Oh, god. Vanya’s stomach twists. And they had spent so much _extra time_ just getting to Klaus’s room, time that could have been used to search for Diego, because she uses a wheelchair and needed help - just for her, to sit here, and be _useless_.

“We need to find him,” Allison says.

“Obviously,” Five says. “I’m afraid you’ll have to make due with the Commission protocols I told you about earlier.” he nods to Allison “Right now - I have a _lead_. That needs to take priority.”

“Five!” 

“What?” Five looks at Allison. “You do get how everyone dying is _worse_ , right?”

“You _have_ to be joking - “ Luther snaps, pushing himself to his feet.

“Oh, what, does that offend your delicate sensibilities, Number One?” Five sneers. Vanya’s fingers creak, grip on the handrim tightening. “Grow up.”

“Okay!” Allison shouts, throwing her hands up. “Stop that! We’re all going to die, but that doesn’t mean you can just leave Diego to _suffer_ , Five.”

Five glares at her, inhaling tightly. “Are the two of you that incompetent?” he snaps. “You feel free, keep Hazel and Cha-Cha busy for me. It’s more _useful_ than tracking down the murderer of a man who died of a heart attack. I _need_ to focus my efforts on finding Harold Jenkins.”

“Five,” Klaus starts, shifting uncomfortably in his bed.

“Really?” Luther bowls over him. “You can’t entertain the idea of helping Diego for more than a minute, but you were almost an _hour_ late because Vanya couldn’t go up the stairs?”

Vanya sucks in a short, sharp breath.

“Luther!” Allison snaps. 

“What?” and he looks - genuinely baffled, of course he does. Why wouldn’t he be? After all, how much time could it possibly take, to navigate from her apartment to here in her chair. Why would they have to navigate at all, it’s not like Five needs to worry about things like _access_ or _walls_. 

What could Vanya possibly offer, to be worth even bringing her at all? And fuck, but she’s so -

 _Bitter_.

She’s _so bitter_.

“Right,” she says, a bit more steady than she feels. A bit less like tramadol and more like - “Right. Well, thank you. It bothered me sometimes, that I didn’t call. But I’m glad I made the right decision.”

“Vanya - “ Luther starts “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Right,” she says. Five is bristling like an alley cat, without the impressive increase in size. Not that that would mean anything next to Luther. “Of course not.”

“It’s not about you at all,” he says, ”Diego is missing.”

 _It never is_.

“Right,” says Vanya. “Okay. Cool. Five why don’t you - I’m just gonna.” she inhales.

“Vanya,” Five says.

“I’m just gonna go.” she says.

\---

Vanya watches the next full elevator full of people eye her chair and hit the _close door_ button dispassionately. Hits the _down_ button, sulky and sore.

She is so _stupid_. Of _course_ Diego is more important than - than _anything_ else, barring the apocalypse-that-may. Of course.

She’s just so _tired_ of being _slow_ and _useless_ and _ordinary_. Of mattering the objective least.

She hits the _down_ button twice, _tap tap_ , even though it won’t bring the elevator any quicker.

She hopes Diego is okay. Missing less than a day - she was in the hospital for _months_ and no one came looking - that’s rude, Vanya, and you know it. It’s not like every concern Luther had raised hadn’t been a thought of hers already. It’s just -

It’s different when it comes out of the mouth of someone else. Especially someone like Luther.

She chuffs air out her nose. “Why are you _like this_ , Vanya?” she asks the foggy reflection of herself in the mirror. Predictably, it doesn’t answer.

The next elevator is empty. She takes it to the ground floor - she’ll be taking the bus, so there’s no point in navigating the maze-like halls. She just needs to get out of the building and find a stop. No taxi - she still doesn’t have her wallet. She’ll have to crawl up the stairs again, with chemical exhaustion and the fog of missing too many doses of her pills settling in her skull.

She wheels herself out of the hospital. She’s lucky that all the busses have ramps - taking the metro is a nightmare, she can never remember which stations have elevators.

Lucky. Right.

She’s almost to a stop when she hears her name. Her head is aching just enough that her first thought is _hallucination?_

But no. She half turns to see Leonard waving at her.

That’s… weird, right?

“Hey,” he says, jogging over. “I thought that was you.”

This is weird, and she doesn’t like it.

“Hey,” she says. She doesn’t turn her chair to face him. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh? Oh!” he laughs. “I uh - would you believe it, but I had a tumour in one of my eyes a few years ago. I need to go in every so often, get a scan.”

Vanya blinks, gazing at Leonards face. He smiles, sheepish, and clicks a fingernail against his right eye. 

Oh. A small, cold fear begins to root in Vanya’s stomach.

“There I thought I’d have to duck out of our date early, but then your brother cancelled on us,” he laughs. Easy, like he’s not annoyed at all, even though any sane person would have been irritated. “You alright? Back in the hospital?”’

“Had a bad reaction to my painkillers,” Vanya rasps, because that’s _technically_ true and Leonard doesn’t need to know the real truth. “I’m okay now.”

“Yeah?” Vanya turns to wheel away, and Leonard falls into step beside her. “Taking the bus?”

“Yep.”

“I have a car,” he says, “If you’d like I could - “

“I’m not really feeling up to company right now,” Vanya says. She’s not feeling up to much of anything, especially not crawling up two flights of stairs. That she’ll do, though. She won’t sit in a vehicle with Leonard and make small talk and pretend like there isn’t ice in the back of her mostly-healed spine. “Sorry.”

“No, no.” Leonard waves her off. “I get it. Being sick is - hard.”

Well, yes, if he had a tumour - but this is so - she doesn’t like it, doesn’t trust Leonard suddenly being here, all soft and kind.

“Yeah,” says Vanya. _Go away_ , she thinks. She wants to be selfish, and to grieve the person she never got to be, the family she doesn’t have. She wants to pity herself even though Diego needs her more.

But what can she do for him? Nothing, of course. She should go home and play out her despair until her stomach stops aching.

“Are you alone?” Leonard asks.

There’s no one else at the stop.

Vanya raises her chin. “I’m just waiting on my brother to join me,” she informs Leonard politely. “Actually.”

“Really? ‘Cause - “

“I was held up for a moment,” Five cuts in, glacial, appearing from nowhere, steps behind Leonard. Delores is held loosely against his hip, and Vanya thinks there is something dangerous in the set of his free right hand.

More importantly - 

He’s there. He showed up. When she needed him, he showed up.

Five came back.

Five’s eyes cut over to Vanya. His face softens almost imperceptibly. “Come on,” he says. “I’ve got us a ride, it will be easier than the bus.”

He doesn’t so much as look at Leonard again. It’s not so much a dismissal as it is utter disregard.

“Right,” says Vanya, already shifting her grip on the handrims. “Later, Leonard.”

Five showed up.

“Right,” he says, stiff on the corners of his easy smile. “I’ll see you - what, Thursday? For violin lessons.”

“Of course,” says Vanya, lying through her fake teeth. “See you then.”

Five doesn’t say anything when Vanya skirts over to his side, striding a little too quickly down the sidewalk. It’s quiet, or it would be quiet if it weren’t for the crunch of gravel under her wheels.

And then it’s not. “You left.” Five says.

Vanya half-turns towards him. His shoulders are a tight, angry line. 

“I wasn’t really useful,” she admits. “And I was - angry.”

“You should have been angry. Luther should shut his mouth instead of assuming a number he received as an infant retains any meaning.”

“Diego _is_ the priority,” she says, and it’s a bitter lie on her tongue, even though it is an objective truth.

“That doesn’t mean.” Five says tightly, “That _you_ are unimportant.”

“Five - “

“Vanya,” he says, stopping. Vanya catches the right wheel, jerking to face him and nearly skidding to a stop. Out of practice. “The world ending is my priority. The death of seven point whatever the population is right now people. That’s my priority. And you have been _immensely helpful_. Because of you I knew to hound Lance for answers. That was you, because you knew more about prosthetics than I do.”

“You might not be as fast as I am, or as strong as Luther is, or as quick to draw blood as Diego is, but you are _exactly what I needed_ ,” Five continues. “And _yes_ , we were late to a relatively wasteful meeting, and _yes_ , we’ll have to do something about Diego, if he hasn’t already rescued himself.”

“But the assumption that any time spent with you is wasted is cruel and wrong.” Five adjusts his grip on Delores, gesturing open palmed with his other hand towards her. “You’ve been the only person to make any headway thus far, after all.”

Vanya feels -

Well, she sits there, mildly uncomfortable and vaguely flattered. She didn’t do that much - just, pointed Five in a direction. That’s all. She has to gaze up at Five from her chair, legless and small.

She clears her throat. “That’s a lot of words for ‘Luther’s an ass.”

Five makes a sound like a cat clearing a hairball. “Of course that’s what you heard,” he mutters. “Alright, come on. We’re going to figure out how to rob a census office. Or… wherever records are kept. Have any ideas?”

Vanya shrugs. “I only know the one person with a prosthetic eye.” Leonard’s fingernail _tap tapping_ against the smooth glass.

But Five turns, interested.

“Oh?” he asks. “Who?”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so - getting fitted for a prosthetic eye happens like _two months_ after you lose an eye, not _the next day_ like in ua canon. stupid. therefore - leonard already has him eye.
> 
> I KNOW LUTHER IS A BIT OF AN ASS HERE and im not sure how terrible it comes across - vanya is definitely quite hurt by his comment - but i do not actually dislike luther so i'll be working with him, too.
> 
> i love how this opens with vanya being like 'yay date' and ends with her going 'oh no hes fuckign SUS AS ALL HELL' we stan a gal with critical thinking skills


	7. I'm Okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, there's some potentially upsetting content near the end with diego and the murder twins. It's nothing too graphic (definitely less graphic than the show), but I wanted to warn!
> 
> this fucking fic just keeps getting longer on me :O i in no way could have predicted this
> 
> edited the italics - had a problem with them not showing up on the last half of the chapter. otherwise, no changes!

It might be late - night falling over the eternally crowded city streets - but Vanya’s favourite library is still bright and cheery, lights shining in all of the window.

Five helps her climb out of the passenger seat, ignoring the way she shakes and taking her into a bridal carry against his narrow chest before transferring her to her waiting chair.

He’s warm, and his scrawny arms are more solid around her than a thirteen year old boy’s should be.

“Thanks,” Vanya croaks. She’s cold, and not from the chill.

“Do you need help with the blanket?” he asks, and she nods so he kneels on the grit, shorts exposing his bare knees; adjusting her blanket burrito so it’s not so twisted and lumpy.

“Thanks,” she says again. “That’s really - it’s nice.” She’d gotten used to a base level of discomfort that’s not worth the effort of alleviating.

Five hums, noncommittal. “How late is the library open?”

“It doesn’t close. It should be pretty empty by now, though. C’mon, the ramp is sort of tucked behind the bushes, over this way.”

Five walks a few steps behind her as she ascends the ramp, since it’s too skinny to let them move shoulder to shoulder.

The library is sort of a lopsided cylinder, organized by subject and genre. Vanya had spent countless hours of her recovery on the fifth floor, for health, and seventh for civil liberties. The elevator - crowded as it sometimes got - was reliable, and being able to move autonomously throughout the entire building had been nearly as good for her as the book on how to adapt her next apartment for her new reality had been.

Though - adding extra traction stickers to her bathtub had been a great tip. And the handgrip by her bed.

“Come on,” Vanya says when Five immediately turns for the elevator. “Let’s figure out where news records are kept first.”

“You got an idea?”

“Just follow my lead.”

The administrator isn’t someone Vanya recognizes, which is good. She’s an exhausted (beautiful) young (younger than Vanya) woman leafing through a thick textbook made of thin paper. There’s a streak of ink on her dark cheek, her braids pinned in a sloppy bun with a cheap disposable chopstick with a splintered end. When she notices Five - and then Vanya in her wheelchair pulling to the desk, she brightens and closes her textbook with a thud, not leaving a page marker.

“Tough homework?” Vanya asks.

“You have _no_ idea.” she says. “I think my o-chem prof forgets we all have three or four other classes than his. Can I help you with something?”

“Yes, actually. My brother and I are looking for - newspapers, personal records, those kinds of articles, about a cousin of ours? We were hoping the library would have copies.” Vanya offers a thin, polite smile.

“Oh! For sure. It’s pretty late for a records crawl, though - are you, uh, on a deadline?”

“Unfortunately,” Vanya lies, putting her hand on Five’s shoulder. He’s stock-still under her hand, frozen. _C’mon Vanya, you can do this_ “He _forgot_ to mention that he was supposed to be doing an assignment on what kind of information you can find in the public domain until about an hour ago, even though it’s due _tomorrow_.”

Five relaxes, and his voice is a pitch-perfect teenage whine. “I didn’t forget, I just didn’t tell you about it.”

It’s the right thing to say. The admin laughs, relaxes “I think my brothers do the exact same thing. Okay, you’re looking for floor six, on the eastern side - that’s where old news records are kept. There’s computers up there, so you can search by name.”

“Thank you,” Vanya smiles, polite as can be. “Okay, the _good_ elevators are this way.”

Unlike the hospital, Vanya’s favourite elevator is empty the first time it comes down to the ground floor. It’s smaller than the hospital elevator, a bit cramped with the two - three, if she counts Delores - of them.

Vanya releases a breath she’s been holding since the last time she took her carbamazepine. Her head is swimming, there’s a trembling in her fingers she doesn’t like. She’s _cold_ , bone deep. Her leg - the bruises, the weird weightlessness without her prosthetic. She just - doesn’t feel good.

“Are you alright?” Five asks as the elevator slowly trundles it’s way upwards.

The elevator dings to a stop. The doors open. “I think I’m going into withdrawal,” Vanya admits. “I missed a couple of doses yesterday, and like… three? Four? Today.” 

Five makes a low, considering noise. “That’s bad?”

Trembling nausea, the shaking, _burning_ rage in her chest that she sobbed over for days, fuzzy blackness on the corners of her vision -

“I’ve been on carbamazepine since I was _four_ ,” Vanya says. “Yeah, it’s very bad. It’s not a kill you dead withdrawal, I guess, but it’s - I’ve only done it once and I never want to do it again.”

Five considers this for a moment. “Should you take one now, then?”

“I’ll wait until my first dose tomorrow. I’m supposed to keep to a schedule.”

The sixth floor is almost entirely deserted, aside from the two - three - of them. There’s a person Vanya thinks is probably homeless sleeping on one of the couches, curled up in old blankets and tense even in his sleep. 

Vanya had slept on the couches here more than once - _weeks_ at a time - when she had been moving apartments. She wonders if this is temporary for him, too.

She hopes so.

“Alright,” Five says, warping into one of the computer chairs in his excitement. “Harold Jenkins. How do I use one of these things?”

“Let me,” Vanya says. “I’ve done this a few times.”

Five acquiesces, rolling his chair out of the desk so Vanya can wheel hers in.

Most of the results for Harold Jenkins are for a country singer that goes by Conway Twitty. He’s been dead for more than twenty years already, and, insofar as Vanya knows, stayed that way.

Aside from the late Twitty, there’s a _Harold Jenkins_ that died of a brain tumour shortly after receiving a scholarship of some significance - not a music one, though, so irrelevant - and a _Harold Jenkins_ that was involved in the development of the rail system.

“What an ass,” Vanya says, pausing on the article. He has an old, creased face and dandelion fluff hair. Vanya hates him.

“Oh?”

“The _vast majority_ of the platforms are inaccessible,” she says, cutting her gaze over to the wing of Five’s jaw. He’s studying the computer screen with enough intensity to start a fire. “What’s the point of public transit if the part of the public that isn’t going to be able to drive at all can’t use it?”

“Mm,” Five says. “Malevolent design. Keep going.”

There’s a Harold Jenkins from Britain that they skip over, a Harold Jenkins that once an elementary school fair, a Harold Jenkins that owns a coffee shop that burned down -

“Stop,” says Five. “Click on that one.”

Vanya obliges. “Stuart Jenkins, 39, murdered by own son, 16.” she reads. “On this Wednesday morning, the fourteenth - “

“No, lower,” Five says, “‘Jenkins will be tried as an adult due to the brutality of his crime. The boy - named for his grandfather Harold Jenkins Sr. - thus far has refused to’ - Vanya, this is him. This is our Harold Jenkins.”

“You think so?” Vanya, personally, feels pretty strongly about the rail designer.

“Patricide isn’t usually an indicator of good intentions. Well,” Five tips his head. “ _Sometimes_. But it’s more likely him than the seven year old with the potato battery.”

“I don’t know, maybe the potatoes were evil, Five.” Vanya says, straight faced.

The _look_ he gives her.

Vanya stifles her grin as best as she can.“Okay, let’s see if we can find anything about the trial. I bet there’ll be a drawing.”

The trial of Harold Jenkins, sixteen, who killed his father with a hammer, lasted about four days. The conclusion was practically foregone the moment he stepped into that courthouse.

“His father was abusing him,” Vanya says, lingering.

“It seems fathers are just like that,” Five says, unsympathetic. “Scroll down.”

She does. “Twelve years, jesus. That’s practically his whole life again.”

“Vanya.”

“I’m scrolling!”

There _is_ a picture of the defendant, a courtroom drawing in watercolours. A young white man with brown hair and brown eyes.

“Is this him?” Five asks, leaning closer. “Is this the boy that was bothering you outside the hospital?”

It’s odd, hearing Five (who is, right now, actually a _boy_ ) call Leonard, a grown man, a _boy_. Regardless of how much older Five actually is.

But - “I don’t know,” Vanya says. “The drawing isn’t - like, _maybe_ , but this could be any brown eyed teenager. It’s not exactly a detailed piece of art, Five.”

Five nods, thinning his lips. “Okay, good enough. He dies.”

“ _Five_.”

“He was _scaring you_ ,” Five seethes, with violence suddenly settling into his hands where they rest on the computer desk. “A one eyed man - _brown_ eyes. He resembles the sketch enough that you can’t say it’s _not_ him. And he scared _you_.”

“I’m pretty easy to scare.” Vanya says. Breathing hard in a vehicle, flinching from bright lights, the whining hiss of a hydraulic press bringing tears burning to her eyes - heart pounding, fear crystallizing in her throat.

The smell of ethanol alcohol and lemon cleaner still makes her gag.

But Five says “No, you’re not.” with complete confidence. “So he dies.”

That’s -

“You can’t kill everyone that scares me,” Vanya rasps, staring back at the watercolour painting of a young boy that killed the man that scared him. 

“Well,” Five says lightly. “We can start with this one and see where it goes.”

\---

Vanya offers, at the red stoplights when the car is just a purring steel trap waiting idly, and not actively delivering her to her worst nightmare (Five is a good driver, he’s not going to crash, she tries to tell herself and proceeds to cry quietly when someone honks at them from behind to go faster) to call Leonard and apologize for earlier. Set up a meeting.

“No,” says Five.

“Five.”

“ _No_.” he repeats. “We are not _luring him_ with the promise of,” Five’s nose wrinkles. “ _Romance_ , or whatever. No.”

“Prude.” Vanya rasps. “ _Pedestrian!_ ”

“I see them,” Five says, braking smoothly. 

“Right,” Vanya says, bumping her head back into the support. Fuck. _Fuck_. “I - let’s see. I have a lesson with him on Thursday,”

“No.”

Vanya rolls her eyes. “And I - Oh, I visited his shop. He’s a woodworker.”

Five nods, finally losing some of that aggressive tension in the flex of his hands on the wheel. “So many nice saws in a carpenter’s shop,” he muses.

“I am _officially_ concerned,” Vanya announces. “Oh- _fuck_.”

“Just a pothole,” Five assures her quickly. “We’re fine.”

“Right,” Vanya inhales, a rattle in her chest. “Right. I’m okay. Five, we can’t just _kill_ Leonard for being creepy and having a brown glass eye.”

“Why not?”

“ _Because_ ,” she says, looking over to him. Five is utterly calm, gazing steadily at the road. “It’s _wrong_ , Five. What if it’s not him?”

“If it’s about surviving - “

“ _Five_.”

He sighs, looking over to her with a tight frown. Whatever he sees on Vanya’s face makes him soften. Vanya feels - some sort of way about that. “Fine, okay? I’ll - I’ll take the eye out of his skull first and match the ID number before I kill him. Okay?”

Vanya searches his face a moment. She nods, slow. _If he can compromise_ , she thinks, _so can you_. “Okay.”

“Okay. We’re almost home, okay? Try to relax.”

\---

When they pull up to her apartment building, before Five can hop out of the van to fetch her wheelchair, Vanya catches his wrist.

His bird-bones are sharp under her palm.

“Five,” she says. “Do you think,” she pauses. “Could you help me up to my apartment and grab the chair after? I’m too tired for all the transfers.”

She is. There’s only the lobby and the hall that she could navigate on her own, and it takes almost no time at all to navigate the cramped space. Her head is swimming, sinuses stuffed full of cotton and she feels like she could just about _burst_. It’s the undampened ache of her bruised right leg and the onset of withdrawal combined with her usual aching fatigue.

Still, she’s glad she went with Five instead of soaking in her own self-pity all night. Even if she’s going to pay for it tomorrow, spent up all her spoons and then some.

 _Piotr will be proud_ , Vanya thinks, and that’s a good thing. He’s always pushing her and she doesn’t always want to push back.

“Of course,” Five circles his wrist to dislodge her grip, briefly tangling their fingers together. “You just had to ask.”

He warps out of the van in a ripple of blue without even unbuckling his seatbelt, already pulling open her door before she can turn her head.

“Hold on,” she says, knuckling open her belt. Her hands are shaking - she can’t get enough force going to click it open before she fumbles her grip. “Sorry, it’s the - the withdrawal, I just need a second,”

“I got it,” Five says, leaning over across her lap. His deft hands unclasp the latch, helping her shrug out out the belt.

“Thanks,” she says. She’s too tired to feel shamed by the help - it can bother her in the morning.

Five makes a noncommittal sound, drawing her into his arms and stepping down from the van. Vanya pulls on the blanket, making a soft little noise when it refuses to untangle from around her single leg and cover her chest.

“Cold?” Five asks, not bothering to lock the car. Hopefully he’ll remember when he fetches the chair and Delores.

“A bit,” Vanya admits, admitting defeat about the blanket and curling an arm around Five’s shoulders. It’s - not untrue. She’s _a bit_ cold in the way Napoleon's armies were _a bit cold_ in Russia. But for her, it’s a chemical imbalance, not temperature. The warmth of the lobby doesn’t touch her at all as Five shoulders their way into the building.

“And this is _normal?_ ” Five asks, adjusting his grip on her body like a shrug. “The - shivering?”

“‘S just withdrawal,” Vanya says. The shakes haven’t reached her jaw yet, that's good.

“Hm,” Five grunts, displeased. He kicks open the stairwell door, spinning to catch it against his back as the heavy door swings shut on them. “Is this all that happens, or does it get worse?”

“We haven’t even gotten to the sweating or the delusions yet, Five.”

“ _Wonderful_.” Five ascends the stairs smoothly after her first wince when stepping up made her jerk. “Keys?”

“In my jacket.”

Five has to shift her weight over to _one arm_ in order to fish out her keys, leaning back to balance some of her mass on his chest.

“Do I weigh anything to you?” Vanya asks the ceiling. She’s too tired to hold up her head.

“Eh,” Five shrugs. Her door opens with the turning of the lock and a long, slow _creak_. “You _should_ eat more. To be fair, I have a mild strength enhancement beyond typical human capacity. Nothing like _Luther_ , but - _fuck_.”

Vanya tilts her head. Her coffee table, she notes, is smashed into little splintered pieces.

“Oh, I was going to replace that anyway,” she says.

“Okay,” Five says to himself, shutting the door. “Okay. Okay, Vanya? I’m going to take you to the Academy for the night, yeah?”

“ _No_.”

“All of our siblings are at the hospital, Klaus hasn’t been released yet,” Five assures her, descending the stairs rapidly. The _bump bump bump_ of the steps makes her feel sick to her stomach. “It’ll be fine.”

“I don’t - “ Vanya swallows thickly. “Have a bedroom anymore, Klaus knocked the wall out to make his room bigger. When I left for school.”

Five pauses for a second, and then exits the lobby. The warmth of the inside might not have eased her shivers, but the cold night air sends a new set of shakes through her spine. It _hurts_.

“There’s plenty of guest rooms,” Five says lightly. “Let’s get you into the passenger seat, okay?”

\---

The first time Vanya went into withdrawal was about seven months after her accident, while she was drafting the manuscript of her autobiography.

She was effectively homeless at that point. She was unable to get into her old apartment, and didn’t have the financial security to sign a lease for a new place. She slept in libraries, mostly. Being a polite, clean, pathetic looking young woman had worked in her favour - the librarians left her alone and she stayed warm and dry through the nights.

Her medication at that point had been costing her over three hundred dollars a refill, every month, the most expensive of which were her carbamazepine by far. Vanya had only so much money left, and she had been in so much pain still. If she wanted her medication to treat her body, then she couldn’t treat her mind.

How bad, she had been thinking, could it possibly be?

Then the shakes hit.

Bad. _Worse_ than bad. There was about two days of lead up where she had been able to force herself to stay on task and then -

Nothing.

There’s a two week stretch that’s just _gone_ from her memory, a few odd scars on her knuckles and an incomprehensible six chapters of her first draft all that remains. 

Almost all - the odd sense memory, weird noises that bring fear trickling down her spine like ice water, a few people that used to give her second glances immediately following that she did not know. Nightmares, half hazy, lingering nausea.

She took out a loan to pay for her carbamazepine and told herself she wouldn’t go off it again.

\---

Five nudges her awake when they stop outside the Academy. _Awake_ isn’t the right word - she wasn’t sleeping, but she wasn’t really _paying attention_.

“I don’t feel very good,” she informs the dashboard. Her gaze flickers up - no headlights oncoming.

“You know,” Five says. “I think I might have noticed that.”

“Mmm,” Vanya’s head lolls against her shoulder. There’s a blurry moment that might take any amount of time at all, and then Five’s hands are carefully unbuckling her belt and pulling her back into his arms. “Sorry. Thought I had more - more time, before I got all pathetic.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have to wait until Imperial Woodwares opens to do anything else, anyway,” Five doesn’t even sound winded, the ass, even though he’s been carrying her on and off all day.

“What about Diego?” she asks. She should really stop calling Five small - he’s the same size she is. Stronger. He still has both his original feet. He’s psychologically older.

“Allison and Luther are searching, I’d be redundant until they caught me up to speed.” The door to the Academy opens soundlessly, of course. “Please don’t throw up on me.”

“I’m not nauseated.” Vanya considers. “Well, I’m nauseated _now_ , but - “

“Gross.”

“It’s sort of,” Vanya stares at the intricate wooden stakes holding the stairwell railing. Five is quick. “I don’t feel well, but I’m okay, and then I don’t feel well and I’m not okay. All at once.”

“What happened last time?”

“You know?” New stairwell. “I don’t actually remember.”

Shattering glass, the _click click_ as she shakes it out of her hair onto the roof of her car - no, that’s the accident. Withdrawal was a blur, a shaking kaleidoscope of pain and confusion, her mouth dry and the _smell_ -

The manor doesn’t smell like anything at all.

Five takes her to one of the nicer guest rooms, with the thick carpet she won’t be able to get her wheelchair through and a plush queen bed. There’s an en suite bathroom, which is good. It’d be embarrassing if she had to crawl through the hallways.

Mostly, though, Vanya wants to _sleep_.

Five drops her gently at the foot of the bed, pulling the (thick, floral, oddly like a hotel) comforter back and adjusting the pillows. Vanya takes the pause to fumble open her blanket, tugging at her sweatpants.

“Alright so I - “ Five makes a strangled noise. “Vanya?”

She forces her sweatpants down her thighs, fumbling with the suspension belt for her prosthetic. “Mm?”

“Oh,” says Five. “Oh, that makes more sense. Do you want help?”

“Nah,” her hands are shaking, can’t get the pressure needed to undo the little teethy clip. “Yes. Help?”

Five curses below his breath. He didn’t turn the lights on in the room, his face a pale smear in the dark. He bats her fingers away from the clasp and unclips the belt, the canvas strap _thwipping_ against the bed cover as he flicks it apart.

His fingertips nudge against her leg when he reaches down to the socket of her prosthetic. “Take it off?” he asks, waiting for her nod.

He gets a good grip on the inside of the socket, his knuckles bumping up against her inner right thigh, bracing himself with his left hand on her hip as he slides the leg (and her sweatpants) off. “Just put it on the floor?” he asks.

“Sure. Take the - the sock out. I need to wash it.” she pauses. “Man… I’m so glad I wear boxers and not - well.” Panties, she was going to say, but that’s kind of crude.

Five barks a laugh. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Hold on a moment,”

There’s a flicker of blue. Vanya shakes her head to test if she’s dizzy - she is - and labouriously flops onto her stomach, wiggling up the bed. 

Another fizzle of blue light, the clatter of her wheelchair being tucked up by the nightstand. Five puts Delores on the pile of discarded pillows before helping her wiggle onto the exposed sheet, holding the lumpy cover down so it won’t offer as much resistance, pulling the comforter over her when she crawls into the bed.

“Yeah,” Vanya curls into the pillow, shivering and uncomfortable still, but much happier than she was in the car. “Thanks, Five.”

“Any time,” he says.

\---

Five leaves Vanya and Delores resting in the guest room once he’s sure Vanya is as comfortable as she can get.

He hadn’t even noticed the tremors in her hands until they had begun to rock her entire frame. He’d thought, for a moment, that she had been starting to _seize_.

But no, that’s what withdrawal is like, apparently. Five wouldn’t know - this thirteen year old body wasn’t dependent or even drawn to alcohol or his more illicit vices, and he’d never felt the need to bother with a detox before returning to his family.

 _No wonder Klaus never got clean_ , he thinks, and then _oh, I bet Klaus knows what’s helpful_. God knows Klaus has _tried_ \- or at least, had been subjected to rehab facilities in the past. 

He needs to speak with Allison and Luther, regardless. It’s not safe to stay in the hospital, not with Hazel and Cha-Cha now hunting down his sibling’s residences (presumably, though he supposes there’s a chance the timing is a coincidence)

(Five isn’t one for coincidences)

(Hopefully Vanya will forgive him, for bringing them here when he promised they were gone)

It’s close to midnight now, almost a full day gone. With any luck, _Leonard Peabody_ will be _Harold Jenkins_ , and tomorrow the apocalypse will be unable to come to cataclysm after all. And then - then he can make things right.

A phone call, what he needs _right now_ is a phone call. If Five is correct, he can just flicker through infinite space and step into the hallway where Vanya’s room used to be - the phone still hanging on the wall, unchanged.

His memory, Five thinks, at least remains trustworthy. Even if his family is not - they care about each other less than he was hoping for. Thinking they would, perhaps, regardless of how thoroughly he had thought Vanya’s autobiography had disabused him of the notion.

“Master Five?” Pogo’s withered voice interrupts before Five can pick up the ancient rotary phone. “Is that you?”

Five frowns, and then pastes as friendly a grin as he can manage on his young face. “Hey, Pogo.”

Pogo got _old_. Seventeen years was a lot longer on him than forty-five was on Five. Though, that might be the cane, aging him, and Five knows that it’s not just the elderly that need aides.

How _had_ Vanya managed the last six years on her own? Poorly, likely. Struggling, doing things halfway because that was _her best_ and it was enough to survive on.

She deserves better.

Pogo - _smiles_ , genuine. That’s nice. Five will have to remember how to do that, eventually. Make sure people know when he’s happy to spend time with them. Delores is always saying his face is more wax than hers is.

“I thought I heard someone making a ruckus in the guest wing,” he says. “Is there something wrong with your room?”

“With Vanya’s,” Five corrects “Klaus’s room has appeared to have swallowed hers.” Little matchbox that it was - barely room enough for a bed. “She’s resting.”

“Oh,” Pogo’s expression warms. “How lovely, to have you both in the house. It has been a long time since Miss Vanya has stayed overnight. Pray tell, why the sudden visit?”

“Her apartment was broken into,” Five says, dropping the smile. “Hazel and Cha-Cha have become a priority - I was about to call Luther and Allison, have them discharge Klaus. No one should stray too far from the Academy until they’ve been dealt with.”

“Oh dear,” Pogo looks behind him, like Hazel and Cha-Cha have developed the ability to warp through walls and intend to leap out of the shadows. “Is she - “

“She’s fine. She’s _sick_ ,” he corrects “A bit. She was with me whenever the break in happened.”

Pogo nods gravely. “And her apartment?”

Totally destroyed - furniture smashed, the couch cut into, the taped up fridge Vanya had been shoddily repairing turned over, all the contents leaking onto the kitchen floor. She didn’t seem to notice - that’s good, she doesn’t need more stress.

“I didn’t stay to find out,” Five admits. “The priority was getting to the Academy.”

“Yes, a good idea,” Pogo nods. “Miss Vanya would do best to stay away from those two - we are very lucky that neither she nor Master Klaus was more seriously injured.” he pauses. “You said she was ill?”

“Withdrawal,” Five clarifies. Pogo -

 _Stiffens_.

Suspicion crawling down the vertebrae of his spine, Five continues airily, like what he’s saying is of no relevance at all “The painkillers the hospital gave her interacted with her anxiety medication, so she had to stop for the day - it’s made her quite ill. She’ll take them again in the morning and feel better.”

“If the side effects are that severe,” Pogo says, only a light, paternal concern colouring his voice. “Perhaps I should have Grace bring her an early dose.”

Hm.

“Vanya wanted to stick to her schedule,” Five shrugs. Such a useful piece of body language - not one available to him in his previous, appropriately aged body. “In the hopes of avoiding another sick spell from the interactions, I believe. And besides, she’s sleeping. Best not to bother her.”

But none of that calms Pogo’s perfectly unflappable mask. _Hm_.

Five doesn’t like it.

“If you don’t mind,” Five says, gesturing to the phone rather than continuing to babble like a stripling. “I should really call my siblings.”

That startles Pogo out of his funk. “Ah, of course. I’ll see about something easy on the stomach for breakfast.”

“Sounds good,” Five says with a tight smile. He watches Pogo walk off before dialing Klaus’s number, half listening to the click of his cane against the floor. 

Not towards the guest rooms - headed to the kitchen.

The phone clicks. “ _Hello?_ ”

“Allison, good.” Five would prefer not to speak to Luther until Vanya has forgotten his callousness, but he would have made his peace with it if it had happened. “How is the search for Diego?”

“ _We were just about to leave actually. We called all of the hotels that matched the criteria you gave me - had some suspicious non-answers about those masked assholes. What’s going on?_ ”

“Before you leave, I need you to discharge Klaus and bring him to the Academy,” Five says, simple, neat, as little room for miscommunication as possible. “There was a break in at Vanya’s apartment - I don’t want anyone to be left on their own until Hazel and Cha-Cha are dealt with.”

 _Anyone but me_ , he mentally amends.

“ _Oh, shit_.” There’s a pause, the indistinct sounds of someone holding the phone away from their mouth while they talk aloud. “ _Okay_ ,” Allison returns. “ _We’ll be there within the hour_.”

“Good. Put Klaus on.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Klaus,” Five repeats. “About your height, not nearly as pretty, speaks to ghosts? Put him on, I have a question.”

Allison chuckles. “ _Okay, but only because you said I was pretty_.”

“Technically I said you were prettier than Klaus, it’s not a high bar - Hey, Klaus.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Klaus rasps. Even through the indistinct phone line, he sounds terrible. Going through a withdrawal of his own - Five suddenly aches for what that must mean. “ _What’s up, old man?_ ”

“Ha. That was me, laughing.” Five pauses, then dives forward. Klaus has never cared for niceties anyway “What do you do about withdrawal to make it suck less?”

“ _Do more drugs, why?_ ”

“Vanya’s off her meds until the morning and it hit her,” he considers, “About an hour ago, really badly. She started shaking, and became far less coherent, very quickly.”

“ _Oh. Oh! Well, uh, get her somewhere warm and dry, obviously. If she can eat, make her eat. Try not to take anything she says personally, I’m always a real bitch to the nurses. I guess… otherwise, it depends on what she’s detoxing from,_ ”

“Carbamazepine. Her anxiety pills.”

Klaus clicks his tongue, considering. “ _I bet you can find a writeup on the withdrawal symptoms in one of Dad’s medical textbooks, if it’s common. There’s usually warnings_.”

That’s - a great idea. And _really obvious_. “Thanks, Klaus.”

“ _Anytime. And, whatever you do, keep an eye on her! Choking on your own vomit is a terrible way to die._ ”

“Okay.” Five says, amused despite himself. “I will.”

\---

Five finds a thick book on pharmaceuticals in Dad’s office that has carbamazepine listed in the index on the heavy oak bookshelf directly behind his desk. He flips through it, stepping through the carpet and into Vanya’s room.

Vanya twitches at the light. _Damn_.

“Sorry,” Five whispers. “Go back to sleep.”

“W’sn’t sl’pin’.” Vanya protests. Another shiver rolls over her as she does, her whole body tightening and trembling even though she must be exhausted. It looks painful, and the room has begun to smell like fever-sweat.

_Sweating and delusions, she said. Delusions of what?_

“Right,” Five says, keeping his voice pitched low and quiet. “I believe you.”

He does, too. Five wouldn’t be able to sleep like that either. 

“Mm.” Vanya shifts. “W’chu doin’?”

“Sitting,” Five says, there’s a writing desk tucked into the corner that will do. “Go to sleep.”

“C’mere.”

“I’m not sleeping yet, I have some reading to do.”

“ _C’mere_ ,” Vanya repeats, louder and with marginally better enunciation. She pats the pile of pillows that Delores is lying upon. “Sit w’th us.”

Five’s lip twitches. _Cute_. If not for the sweat, the shaking, and her overall malaise.

…No, still cute.

“I don’t want to bother you,” Five says, because Vanya is disgusting and sad right now, and definitely should be left alone. “You should really rest.”

Vanya hits the pillows twice in response, hard enough that her elbow pops audibly “ _Ow_ ,” 

“Oh, for - “ Five warps over, dropping his book on the cover. “ _Fine_. As long as you promise to go the hell to sleep, Vanya.”

“Mm.”

“That’s not agreement.”

“ _Mm_.”

Five sighs, and flicks on the bedside lamp. “Fine.” he says, ignoring the twitch of her lips. At least _she_ finds this funny. “I will sit with you and Delores and read, and you will sleep.”

He clambers onto the bed, careful not to jostle Vanya overmuch rather than just warping onto the mattress. “Oh all the stubborn, pigheaded, bull-brained - “

“You _like_ it,” she teases, her voice hoarse and stiff. “Bossy britches that you are.”

“I think all the thoughts in your head have been replaced with violin music,” he grouses companionably back, grinning. She has the energy to tease, that’s - something, no?

“At least I d- d - d - “ she breaks off, shaking hard enough to rattle the bedframe. “D- d- didn’t lose my m - mind time travelling.”

“Rude.” Five pads the backboard with pillows until it makes a comfortable sort of wedge. “Hurtful!”

“Asshole.” Vanya hums, curling closer. “Uh - hold on. What’s a good insult. _Mathlete_.”

“That’s not an insult, it’s just true.”

Vanya snorts. There’s quiet for a while, and Five turns to page 261, the start of the article on carbamazepine. The text is tiny and hard to make out in the poor light, but that’s fine.

He’s read in worse conditions.

“You came back,” Vanya says quietly.

Five wonders when she’ll stop being surprised by that. “Of course.”

“Okay,” says Vanya. “Okay. I’m - sleep.”

“Sounds good,” says Five, settling in to read.

And then, unsettled, continues to read.

_Father, what did you do?_

\---

Diego glares at the scratchy motel carpet. There’s blood itching at his nose he can’t scratch, and it’s driving him more than a little bit insane.

The bastards had stopped being pathetically incompetent and start getting creative eventually. Diego lost a nail once on a mission - had a door slammed on his hand; it turned black and peeled off after a few days. 

He thought _that_ hurt. It’s nothing compared to having his healthy nails yanked out one by one, needle nose pliers wedging themselves into his fingertips. Or having a curling iron held against his bicep. His own knives being used to cut into the nerve clusters in his soft underarm. He stops having to remind himself to be afraid after they do - _something_ \- to his wrist, a sickening pop, a flash of pain. It still hurts. 

His one saving grace is that they never bring out any needles.

“I d- d- don’t _kn- kn- know any- anything_ ,” Diego repeats for the nth time - the same words he’s been repeating since they kidnapped him - how long ago? A day?

He wonders who these people are, and if they realize they’re terrible at their jobs. Terrible at - actually _getting_ information, getting _people_ who _have_ information. Really, he would have cut and run by now. How many times is he going to have to repeat himself before they realize he’s a shit person to interrogate? An infinite amount it feels like. 

Maybe they’re just sadists. The woman - she seems to like it when he makes soft, thready noises of pain.

All the while he tries to slip his bonds. The duct tape has stretched a little, become less sticky. He probably won’t be able to _break_ it, but he might be able to slip out. Maybe if he could break his thumb back, but _that_ would require his hands being tied _together_ , not to opposite arms of the chair.

He has a pounding headache that’s not from the beatings he’s taken, or the concussion he probably has. It’s been over a full day since he’s taken his stimulants, and the lack is setting into him with a vengeance. Already, it’s harder to focus and keep his mind sharp. If there’s anything that should kickstart a hyperfixation bent, the burning need to _escape_ should do it.

And it’s - trying. Diego can feel the beginnings of it, thoughts chasing each other like a dog going for its tail. But the withdrawal - the no food, the no sleep, the lack of stimulation in between torture sessions, the _pain_. His brain is going a thousand places all at once and none of them stick long enough to be helpful.

He’s listening to the woman sharpen her knives, thinking about Eudora, thinking about _fuck, this is going to be such a good bar story_ , thinking about how much his wrist hurts, when there’s an odd sound, like air being sucked out of a vaccuum, and a metallic rattle.

The woman sighs, “What do they want now?”

Diego perks up. Information?

More noises - a door being opened, a jar lid being removed, paper being unwrapped. “‘Protect Harold Jenkins’,” says the man. “Like we don’t have _enough_ to do.”

“Who the hell is Harold Jenkins?”

“No idea. Must be Number Five’s next target.” More vacuum noises. “Guess we don’t need him anymore.”

 _Fuck_. Fear thrills down Diego’s spine. He hasn’t found a way out yet - _isn’t ready_. He’s still not prepared, doesn’t have a _plan_ -

“Oh I’m going to enjoy this,” the woman hisses. Oh - _hell_. Oh fuck.

“Hey,” Diego protests, already picturing _knife edge, click of a gun_. He needs an out, he needs to get out _right now_ \- “No, hey, listen - “

“After you gave us the run around all _fucking_ day,” the woman spits. Her knives click against each other, she picks something up with a sinuous _thwip_. 

“You’d think you’d just get it over with, already.” the man complains. “Give how long we’ve been putting up with this bastard.”

“Hey, _no_ \- “

“Oh, this won’t take long.” she says. “But I’m going to enjoy _every second_.”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D
> 
> About diego, since i'm sure this is the question you all want the answer to -
> 
> Stimulants! Honest, Diego in s2 reads to my like someone with severe ADHD who just got _bodied_ by a hyperfixation, and since adhd wasn't a diagnosis in '63, ended up not getting appropriate treatment.
> 
> Diego, stalking Lee Harvey Oswald- _I ALSO DON'T ME TO BE DOING WHAT I'M DOING_
> 
> ...that is the question you all had, right? right???


	8. Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand, we're back! if you missed it, I also wrote a 16k angsty one-shot to kick start my roleswap au over the past week. I hope you all missed _Two Feet Forward_ in the meantime - I know I did!

Five looks up. The textbook, crumpled pages he’s already thoroughly covered in ink, closes with a heavy, crisp sound, placing it on the bedside table and falling through the black.

“There you are,” he says, stepping onto the heavy persian rug in the main hall. Luther has Klaus in one arm, Allison in the other, rain having begun at some point and now falling in heavy sheets. Both Klaus and Allison are mostly dry, but Luther is soaked through his painfully obvious oversized overcoat.

Klaus looks terrible - not worse than Vanya, but more miserable. He had been pale in the hospital, but in the warm light of the Academy he looks absolutely ghastly. Like the specters he hates so much, or the corpses Five dropped in an effort to get back to this particular  _ when _ .

“Good,” says Five. “There’s been a series of developments.”

_ Father. Diego. Harold. So many men, so many things to do, mistakes to fix, messes to clean up _ .

“Oh no,” says Allison. So dramatic, even if it  _ is _ a little bit accurate. Luther is careful not to trip her as Allison gets her feet back under herself, the sharp points of her heels  _ clicking _ . 

The sound makes Five nervous.  _ She’s _ not here, however. Just Allison.

Senseless. Pointless. He’s not  _ afraid _ .

“First,” Five says, giving himself a little shake. “Klaus, you look like shit.”

“Why, thank you.” 

“Luther, take him up to the guest room - the one with the good four poster and the en suite. Vanya’s sleeping, so be quiet about it. Klaus, make sure she doesn’t seize or aspirate bile or - something.”

Klaus makes a small, pained noise. Five thinks it may have been a laugh. “What if I get sick?” he asked. “These two checked me out so fast I didn’t even get a prescription for the pain.”

Five frowns. “We’ll figure something out.” he says. “Vanya - “ he pauses.

Fuck, Vanya doesn’t have her legs on. And she shouldn’t - hell.

“You know what,” Five says, already stepping back, air roiling behind him as he pulls up null-void through space. “I’ll meet you in Vanya’s room.”

Black rushes over his head and Five steps lightly into the guest room. Vanya’s shifted in her sleep, curling closer to the warm patch Five had left when he’d gone to greet their siblings. 

“Okay,” Five hums. The leg he takes and - frowning, he warps to his bedroom, hiding the leg in the wardrobe, taking his comforter and warping back. The lack of her legs is sort of obvious, no creasing or displacement of the comforter. He’s not sure how observant his siblings are (not very, but  _ not very _ isn’t  _ not at all _ ), but it remains the most blatant tell.

“ _ Vanya _ ,” Five hisses, dropping his blanket on the floor. Vanya doesn’t really react - maybe a slight fluttering of her eyelids.

She doesn’t want their siblings to know about her accident. That’s important to her - it’s a secret she trusted him with, and he intends to keep it.

Five pulls the comforter back, even though it makes Vanya complain a little. “Sorry,” Five says, already reaching for the decorative pillows. Vanya’s bruised right leg ends just a few inches below the knee. Five makes his hands gentle in a way they haven’t been since he stranded himself through time, lifting her leg and stuffing a long, slender pillow underneath. “I’m just going to give you some fake legs. Our siblings are here.”

“Mm?” Vanya’s eyes slit open, confused. She doesn’t look relaxed or eased at all, even though she’s still more asleep than not. The pillow under her head is damp with fever-sweat, and fine shudders are running through her shoulders, making her jaw shake. “Nn?”

“Siblings,” Five says, patting the pillows that hopefully will create a convincing enough leg crease for her nearly absent left, pulling the covers back over Vanya before she can shiver from cold, too. “I hid your prosthetic in my room,” he adds. “Klaus will stay with you in case the withdrawal becomes violent.”

“Nn?” that makes Vanya take notice, some of the stiffness, the awareness pulling back into her shoulders. “Wh’ c’n’t? You stay?”

Five sighs. “I’d  _ like _ to,” he says honestly. “But Luther and Allison are going to search for Diego, and I’d prefer to accompany them lest their fraught adolescent flirting get in the way of their reflexes, and they miss something.”

Vanya snorts, wincing when it hurts.

“Besides, Hazel and Cha-Cha are my problem,” he adds. “And - I seem to have a bit of extra time now that we’re identified most-likely-Harold Jenkins. I’ll know for sure in the morning. Ergo, Diego has become my first order of business. Delores will stay between you to supervise,” he tacks on, raising his brow at her. “Klaus won’t notice anything so long as you don’t become fatally ill.”

“Babysitting,” Delores sighs, “But alright, I’ll do my best.”

“Mm,” Vanya doesn’t seem to agree, but the handle of the door is already turning, Luther carrying Klaus in one arm like a bag of bread. Trying not to squish him out of shape, ha ha.

“Klaus can go on the left side of the bed,” Five says. “I brought a blanket so you aren’t fighting for the covers.”  _ So he doesn’t kick her in the place where her shin isn’t, and realize, or so they aren’t sweating on one another, disgusting, withdrawal is a nightmare. I had best stay away from cocaine now that I’ve avoided developing the addiction in the first place _ .

“Great,” says Klaus. “Careful with my shoulder when you put me down, big guy. If I rip my stitches that asshole trauma nurse isn’t going to let me live it down.”

“Allison?” Five asks, ignoring Klaus for the moment. Asshole nurse? Hm.

“In the kitchen,” Luther says. “She was going to grab some granola bars and water, for Diego.”  _ When we find him _ , he doesn’t say. Already preparing for injury, for trauma.

“That’s nice,” says Five. It is, objectively. Five hasn’t been  _ nice _ preemptively in a long time. “Well, what are you waiting for? I need to speak with Klaus.”

“Oh!” Klaus smiles. Luther looks exhausted, snapping the comforter open and tucking it around Klaus, who preens at the attention. “Thanks, Luther.”

“Yep,” says Luther.

“You could have taken off my jeans first.”

“Nope,” says Luther. “Getting you into them was enough of a pain in the ass, thank you.”

Five smiles thinly, and not kindly at Luther’s back as he leaves the bedroom, before focussing on Klaus.

Klaus is staring back, something glittering in his exhausted, cloudy eyes. Something sharp, the boy who looks at the dead and has decided not to care. 

Good.

“Vanya can take her pills in the morning, if she chooses.” Five states bluntly. “Don’t let Pogo or Grace pressure her into taking them early or taking more than her usual dose.” 

Klaus frowns, dropping his head onto the pillows. “Why?”

“Carbamazepine isn’t anxiety medicine.” Five says, simple, clear, like a knife to the thorax. Cutting into something you didn’t realize would bleed. “It’s not pediatric medication, either, except in rare or severe cases of epilepsy - and Vanya has been prescribed high doses of it since she was a toddler.”

Klaus lifts his head, wincing. The rest of his colour drains from his face. “What?”

“I’m saying,” Five says, short. “If Vanya takes her medication in the morning, before I can talk to her, it’s fine. Otherwise, I need you to watch out for her.”

Klaus blinks, owlish. “Vanya doesn’t have seizures,” he says, misty, confused.

_ Patience _ , Five thinks impatiently. “No,” he says, tight, “She doesn’t.”

“Oh.” Klaus drops his head again. “Oh, that’s not good, is it?”

“Nope,” says Five, “Can I trust you?”  _ Too look out for her, to understand what I’m saying, can I, can I, can I - _

Klaus inhales. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But I promise I’ll tell you what happens.”

Five purses his lips, considering. “Alright. Thank you, Klaus.”

\---

“So,” Five warps into the kitchen chair, snaking Allison’s mug into his hands. He takes a sip -  _ ergh _ , green tea. He takes another sip. “Diego.”

“Luther,” Allison says.

“On it,” Luther says, already pulling down a second mug for Allison.

“Thank you,” Allison turns to Five. “There’s three motels that fit your criteria that either refused to answer our questions, or answered suspiciously. Let’s see… Night Away Hostel, Luna Matar Lodge, and a Super Eight with a bunch of shady reviews.”

Three hotels. “We could split up,” Five suggests, slow, “Except, shit - if Hazel and Cha-Cha are there…” Five would be fine - in an emergency, he could always flee and regroup. Allison and Luther aren’t so lucky. 

Allison nods, “Those freaks really tore up the Academy. The kind of firepower the were packing - “

“We’ll be better off as a group,” Luther agrees. “Just like the bank.”

The bank -

Five’s mouth twitches up. Their first mission, long before he disappeared. “Of course,” he says. “I’ll drive.”

“ _ I’ll _ drive,” Allison corrects. “Senior citizen you may be - “

“The cutoff is 65,” Five protests.

“ - But there’s no way you have a valid license in that body,” Allison continues, heedless. She holds out her hand, imperious. “Keys?”

\---

“So Harold Jenkins is the cause of the apocalypse?” Allison asks, knuckles pale as her fingers flex on the steering wheel. “And he was stalking Vanya?”

“He’s involved somehow, though the exact extent to which is hard to determine,” Five corrects. “But likely. And yes.”

“Great,” Allison says, pulling into Luna Matar Lodge. “So we’re going to kill him?”

“I am going to handle things,”

“ _ Great _ ,” Allison repeats with emphasis, pulling to a parking spot. She cuts the engine, twists, and meets his eyes with a furious scowl twisting her perfect features. “So  _ we’re _ going to kill him?”

Five returns her stare, stone faced.   
  


“You’re not alone, Five.” Allison’s scowl deepens. “And I - God, I had this stalker a while back. It ruins your life, even if you can fight back, okay? I want in.”

“I told Vanya I’d handle it, insofar as the stalking goes.” Five says, scowling. He’ll even pull the eye out of Leonard/Harold’s skull to check the serial number, just to be sure. Possibly even  _ before _ he kills Leonard/Harold. Maybe. It’s not like Five won’t kill him either way - whatever Vanya thinks, being a bad man stalking a disabled woman is absolutely worth a death sentence. “He’s my responsibility.”

“Vanya is our sister, too - “

Five barks a laugh, “Oh  _ please _ ,” he sneers. “Vanya can’t rely on you. She needed you, and you have  _ no idea what I’m talking about _ , that’s how badly you fucked up.”

“Five - “

Five warps out of the car, unwilling to take the second he’d need to open the door and get his seatbelt off. They don’t even know - they have  _ no idea  _ -

“Let’s just see about Diego,” Five says when the car doors close behind him. “Try not to fuck this up, shall we?”

“Five!” Allison snaps, stalking after him. Five cheats, warping to the lobby door and pulling it open. He needs to get a handle on his temper - shaking, red clouding his eyes.

Of course, anger is always good for scaring people into doing what he needs. Five grins, wide and toothy at the unassuming clerk.

“Hi,” he says, “I have a couple of questions.”

The clerk doesn’t look up from his magazine - Five peers over the desk, curious. Playboy.

“I’m looking for,” Five pauses. “My scout leaders. They forgot to tell me their room number.”

“Sorry,” the clerk says absently. “Can’t help you.”

“Hazel and Cha-Cha?” Five continues. Allison and Luther slip into the lobby; he ignores them. “A white man and a black woman, wearing suits?”

The clerk sighs, “I can’t release information on guests,” he says. “Boy scout or not. Did your parents drop you off? Might as well go home.”

Five’s smile ticks up wider. A smart man would have started feeling afraid, but the clerk is not smart. He doesn’t even realize Five is moving until he’s perched on the counter, open scissors held in his right hand and pressed against the clerks poorly shaven throat, blood already beading on the edge of the blade. Five curls his left hand tighter on the clerks collar, yanking him closer so Five can really get a good look at the whites of his eyes.

“Hazel,” Five repeats, pressing the blade harder, blood running tacky between his fingers. “And Cha-Cha. I recommend you rethink your policy of nondisclosure before I open your neck and look through your ledger myself.”

“Jesus, Five!” Luther swears.

But the clerk is already patting at his desk, holding a key in one trembling hand. “Room 225! Room 225! God, don’t hurt me!”

“ _ Thank you _ ,” Five curls his smile up wider before shoving the clerk back into his chair. “Okay,” he says, turning to Allison and Luther. Allison’s physically holding Luther back by his overcoat, and Luther is just… letting her. “Shall we?”

“You’re crazy,” says Allison.

“Got the key, didn’t I?”

“He’s calling the cops on us,” Allison says. “We’ll have to be quick.”

Five sighs. His siblings haven’t grown any smarter in the forty-five (seventeen) years he’s been away, always stating the obvious.

Room 225 is dark and the shades are drawn, hiding any sightline. Luther presses his ear to the door, and frowns. “All quiet,” he says.

Fear thrills down Five’s spine. If Hazel and Cha-Cha have already moved locations, if they’ve taken Diego with them, if they  _ haven’t _ -

_ Getting ahead of yourself, Five, _ he chides.  _ Investigate first. _

Allison takes the key, quietly unlocking the door. “Ready?” she breathes.

Luther nods. She pulls the door open, ducking behind cover as Luther charges in. Five flickers onto one of the beds as he does, unstable under his sudden weight.

  
“Oh,  _ fuck _ .”

Hazel and Cha-Cha are gone. Diego is not.

Hanging from the ceiling, a noose around his neck.

\---

Vanya wakes up with Klaus in her bed. In  _ the _ bed, she remembers slowly, dragging the memories to the front of her head like dragging a soaked towel through sand. She’s in the Academy, in a guest room because her room is gone, and she’s in  _ withdrawal _ .

_ I don’t feel so good _ , she thinks, miserable.

Sweating through the goddamn pillow. Her head is pounding, and she can hear her eyes move. Staticky shivers in her spine. She’s made of meat and gristle that’s all trying to shake itself off her bones, trying to rip herself apart, trying to not-live, trying to  _ escape _ .

“Ugh,” Vanya groans, shifting. Her residual limbs feel heavy, painful sparks in her astral toes that no longer exist. Her ankles she doesn’t have are hot and swollen, and her knee-that-isn’t aches.

Of course, her flesh and bone knee hurts as well, but it’s - eased, fortunately. A bit. The only part of her body that should be throbbing with soreness and isn’t. It feels like a bad cramp itchy healing, instead of the knife’s edge of agony, the crushing pain from before.

Klaus. In her - in  _ the _ bed. And Delores, sitting on the pillows. Two legless ladies, and hell, but Vanya’s empathizing with a mannequin.

Is that more, she wonders, or  _ less _ crazy than gluing eyes to your toaster and naming her Phyllis?

“Piss,” Vanya groans into her pillow. It’s damp with sweat and drool and Vanya still can’t find the energy to lift her head and exchange it with a clean one. She’s going to need a bath. “I feel terrible.”

“Oh, worm?” Klaus mutters nonsensically. “There’s fucking - a tazer  _ in my spine _ . Ah.  _ Ah _ .”

“My general practitioner calls them brain zaps.” Vanya offers. She feels leaden, and like she’s going to hit the ceiling, unmoored.

“ _ They can zap right off! _ ” Klaus twitches. “Oh.  _ Ow _ .”

“Mm” with monumental effort, Vanya cracks her eyes open. The dim light of the room is  _ blinding _ . “I need… I need my carbamazepine. ‘S morning. ‘S it morning?” 

“‘Five. Almost five. It’s not five it’s… four twenty seven.” Klaus says, “Wait, shit.”

That’s too early to take her dose, but Vanya’s will to go a little off schedule if it makes her back stop flinching like a horse with flies.

She opens her eyes a little wider. Klaus has a bulky sling on, pinning his injured arm to his chest as he leans back on a pile of pillows. Does it hurt? Probably.

He got to keep his arm, Vanya thinks, ignoring the bitter tang of envy on her dry, parched tongue. 

“My pills,” she pauses. “Are in my coat.”

“Hanging on the door. Vanya, about your pills - “

Vanya makes a little noise, “I can’t get up,” she says, plaintive. She doesn’t have legs. Five said - Five said. What did he say, that he was moving her prosthetic so no one would notice?

That’s so sweet. He’s such a good secret keeper.

Vanya is -

She’s glad she told him, first.

“Oh,” does Klaus sound relieved? Why? “Okay, well why don’t you go back to sleep. We’ll wait for Five to get back. ‘S early.”

“But,” there’s hair tickling her nose. Vanya can’t muster up the energy to brush it away. “But, I need my dose.”

“Later,” Klaus murmurs, a yawn cracking the word in half. “Put it off.”

“I’m not really supposed to go cold turkey in the first place,” Vanya admits to her pillowcase. It fills most of her field of vision, the rest taken up by the edge of Delore’s missing lap and Klaus’s bandaged shoulders. “I was feeling reckless… it’d be easier to stay on my schedule if I just waited. My GP is going to kill me.”   
  


“Do you go to the same one?” Klaus asks. “Like… have a doctor. To yourself. That’s some bougie shit.

“Nah, it’s a clinic,” Vanya’s eyes blur. She’s so tired. “There’s… four or five, depends on who’s available. Fuck, I’m ruining this stupid pillow.”

“Eh,” Klaus yawns again. “We’ve also… sweated through the sheets. The mattress is going to smell.”

“Oh  _ no _ ,”

“Yep.” Klaus shifts. “Hey Vanya?”

“Mm?”

“Want to help me come up with cyborg jokes? For my arm.”

Vanya snorts. If there’s anyone who’s a cyborg here, it’s  _ her _ , with her metal and plastic legs. “Sure,” she says, wistful. She’s got a six year headstart on the good jokes. “How many - uh, how many pins? What’d they do?”

“Oh god, you’re going for  _ accuracy _ .” Klaus sighs. “Let me… let me poke my thinking brain.”

“Gross.”

“Head meat. Skull jello. Thinking jam.”

“ _ Gross _ .”

Klaus laughs. Vanya grins lopsided against the pillow. She’s disgusting, and sweaty, and she feels like there’s a construction site in her bones jackhammering at the joints, her stomach a fist crushing her guts.

This is what she wanted. Six years ago, alone in that room. She wanted someone to sit with her while she was gross and miserable and in mourning and prepare jokes because if it’s funny, it can’t ruin you. She wanted her  _ family _ .

She waited for them. She waited, and waited, and  _ waited _ , and then she needed to survive. She needed money.

`

No turning back. One day at a time.

Vanya blinks tears into the cotton. She clears her throat, wet. “Okay, well, to start let’s go for airport security jokes, because metal detectors will be a nightmare now.”

“Oh,  _ hell _ . I didn’t even think about that.”

“You would have got there eventually,” she did, “Okay… something about strip searches?”

\---

“Diego,” Five breathes. Diego doesn’t, his chest doesn’t rise and fall as he hangs limply from the ceiling. His hands are bloody, his torso is streaked with drying sweat and crusted over blood, one of his eyes is swollen.

He was too late. He was  _ too fucking late _ . He failed, he  _ failed _ , he might be able to save the world but he can’t take this back there’s no  _ taking this back _ -

The briefcase. He could - he could change this, deal with Hazel and Cha-Cha and check if Harold Jenkins is Leonard Peabody, rescue Diego - he could buy himself a few hours, a new day, he could  _ fix this _ , his fucking  _ arrogance _ , thinking that his siblings could take care of themselves while he dealt with the apocalypse -

Too many priorities, but that’s no  _ excuse _ .

“Oh, god.” Allison breathes, hand over her mouth. “No,  _ no _ \- “

Diego’s foot kicks out. His unswollen eye slits open, and he wheezes without air.

Five’s heart leaps into his mouth. Luther is already taking Diego in his arms, lifting him, getting slack in the rope.

“Knife!” Allison shouts. “Fuck, knife - I’ve got scissors!” she wields the paper scissors from the bedside table like a sword.

“I’ve got it,” Luther grunts, shifting his hold on Diego and snapping the noose with his bare hands.

Huh.

Five watches wide eyed as Luther lowers Diego carefully to the ground, thumbing the rope apart. Diego doesn’t cough or splutter, pulling in air in smooth, even breaths.

He’s dead. He’s not dead. He’s dead. He’s  _ not dead _ .

And then Diego croaks, raspy. “Cool. You’re fucking late, Number One.”

Allison groans. Five’s laugh leaves his chest in a rush of relief.

He hasn’t failed yet.  _ Diego is alive. _

“What happened?” Luther asks. “No, don’t get up. Let me look at your hands.”

Diego grunts. There’s purple-black bruising around his neck, he’d been hanging for a long time, long enough to bruise. “Had a tea party,” he snarks, an airless whistle still in his word. “Fucking - what do you  _ think _ happened. Those freaks from the Academy want  _ you _ , by the way.” he nods towards Five, wincing.

“I know,” Five says. His voice is steadier than he is, still standing on the overly springy mattress. “I’m sorry you got involved.”

“I’m fucking not,” Diego says. “Never felt so pissed in my life. Gonna fucking - kill those bastards. Dickweeds.”

“But how did you  _ survive _ ,” Allison breaks in. “You’re lucky you didn’t break your spine! Or suffocate.”

“She didn’t want me dead  _ that _ quick.” Diego rolls his eyes. Five steps off the bed, leaning down to look at the hand Luther is frowning at. 

Diego’s nails have been torn out, and his wrist is swelling. Broken, surely. 

Five is going to kill someone. Preferably Cha-Cha - Hazel doesn’t have the stomach. He’s going to kill her  _ slow _ .

“And for suffocation…” Diego grins, lopsided. It’s be more charming if his teeth weren’t bloody. “I don’t need to breathe, obviously.”

Five blinks. He means -

“Since  _ when? _ ” Luther demands.

An ability?

“Since always, dipshit. Not all of us simped for fucking  _ Reginald Hargreeves _ , gave up all our secrets.” Diego’s grin turns into a snarl, glaring at Luther. “Fuckin’ came in handy, didn’t it?”

Five sighs, closing his eyes. He still hasn’t failed. By luck - but still. Luck counts as a virtue, Five hasn’t survived this long by sheer skill alone. Coincidence, using what’s around you - that’s as much a part of surviving as anything else.

Anyone who says otherwise is a fool. And while Five is often  _ foolhardy _ , he wouldn’t have lived this long if he was entirely without sense.

“Alright,” Five says, opening his eyes. Everyone that matters is still breathing. “Alright, Diego is alive. The next order of business - killing Hazel and Cha-Cha,”

“Absolutely,” says Diego.

“You’re on rest for the foreseeable future,” Five snaps, irritated. _ You could have been killed _ , he wants to say,  _ I need you to be alive.  _ “You’ll have to make due with an anecdote. And dealing with Harold Jenkins.”

“Apocalypse Mary,” Allison agrees, cutting her eyes over to him. Five frowns - not done with their conversation from the parking lot, are they?

“Those are the same thing,” Diego cuts in. “‘S why they left. Got a  _ weird _ fucking message -  _ ‘Protect Harold Jenkins’ _ ”

“Fuck,” Five curses. The Commission, interfering as ever.  _ She _ must be losing her mind at this point - it’s been five (six? He needs a calendar, or just a moment to collect his thoughts) days and no one has managed to off Five at this point.

“I’m coming,” Diego says.

“ _ No one _ ,” Allison glares at Five. “Is going anywhere just yet. We are going  _ home _ and we are going to  _ plan _ because we are in this together,  _ Five and Diego _ .”

“You need medical attention,” Luther agrees. “Your nail beds are already showing signs of infection.”

“Piss,” Diego curses.

“Fine,” Five snaps, glaring at Allison. He still needs to speak with Vanya, regardless. “But only because  _ Imperial Woodwares _ doesn’t open until ten.”

“If that’s what it takes.” Allison says.

\---

Vanya blinks awake some time later, to the sound of Klaus and Luther speaking in hushed whispers. 

“ _ Mn? _ ” she groans. 

“Oh, look at what you did,” Klaus snaps. “We were  _ trying _ to let her sleep!”

“Me?” Luther asks. “Since when - “

“ _ Mmmnn? _ ” she asks. Her mouth tastes like something died in it.

“Luther, you ass.” Klaus complains.

“You’re both assholes, now get out.” Five cuts in. Vanya slits her eyes open - Five’s perched on the writing desk on the far end of the room. A little bird in blue. “Now.”

“I’m  _ ill _ ,” Klaus complains. “Oh, but I am hungry… Luther, carry me to the kitchen?”

Vanya makes a plaintive noise when the mattress sways under Luther’s arms, curling under Klaus and lifting him into a bridal carry. The door opens soundlessly, and clicks shut.

“Thirsty,” she complains.

“There’s water on the bedside table.

“ _ Tired _ ,” she complains, louder.

Five sighs. There’s muffled footsteps on the plush carpet, the sounds of glass being picked up and water being poured.

“Diego has been rescued,” Five says. Vanya rolls onto her back sluggishly, Five helping her support her head, tipping a half-full glass of water to her mouth. “A bit rough around the edges, no lasting damage. Pogo is taking a look.”

Vanya raises a brow, sipping cautiously at the water.  _ Pogo? _

“Grace is… “ Five sighs. “Grace is currently embroidering through her hand. There’s something wrong with her software.

Vanya starts, spilling water down her chin and soaking her front. 

“There’s a chance repairs can be done,” Five assures her. “No one is going to ‘kill mom’, as Diego put it. Klaus was accusing Luther of making you cry again, which is apparently a mortal sin now,” Five rolls his eyes. “Being an asshole is fine so long as you don’t have to deal with the consequences, I suppose.”

“Rude,” Vanya says. “More water?”

She drinks until her mouth tastes more like _ tongue _ than  _ corpse _ , even gaining enough strength to lay her trembling right hand weakly over Five’s holding the glass. She’ll need to eat, eventually, but just the thought of food makes her stomach twist.

“Have you taken your morning dose?” Five asks.

“Not yet,” Vanya admits.  _ Carbamazepine and T-3, no tramadol. _ “I can’t get to them, anyway.”

“Right,” Five hesitates. “Vanya - I know you don’t feel well, but I don’t think you should keep taking the carbamazepine.”

Vanya frowns.  _ What? _

Five meets her gaze steadily. “I did some reading,” he says “And - “

“ _ Five, what’s taking you so long?” _ Allison shouts from somewhere downstairs, making them both start.

Five frowns, glaring at the door. He looks back to Vanya. “Look. do you trust me?”

She does, is the thing. Five looking at her, nervous not like a schoolchild, but like a grown man with a horrible confession, painful in his ribs. Dr. Greenwood explaining what it had taken for her life to continue, the parts she was going to have to lose, the things she would never,  _ ever _ get back. The firefighter taking her broken hand and listening to her talk, slurry and barely coherent, because she needed to  _ stay awake _ .

It’s not just  _ do you trust me _ , it’s  _ do you trust me not to make you suffer through withdrawal, shaking and miserable, for no reason? _ It’s  _ do you trust me enough to keep suffering without a clear answer? _ It’s  _ have I earned it? _

Vanya nods, a dip of her chin. “I do.”

Five’s brows rise in relief, lines disappearing from around his young eyes. “Good. Okay, just - just stay away from the carbamazepine until I can do more research, okay? The others are fine.”

“Okay,” Vanya agrees.

“Okay,” Five repeats, like he can barely believe she agreed. “Okay. Now let’s - we’re having a meeting on the apocalypse. Again. I’ll help you into your chair.”

They don’t put on her prosthetic, Five burritoing her in a thick duvet that hides her missing feet quite nicely. 

“Just carry me down,” Vanya says, “I’m too tired to use the chair, and there’s stairs anyway.”

Five and Vanya meet their siblings in the sitting room, claiming an entire couch to themselves. Five pulls Vanya’s duvet (and the end of her right leg, careful not to agitate the bruises) onto his lap to make room for him to sit at her side.

“Pogo is fixing Mom,” Klaus says, waving a notepad in his one free arm. “I’m taking notes for him.”

“Give me that!” Allison says. “ _ I _ will be taking notes.”

  
Diego looks terrible, Vanya thinks. His face is swollen and bruised, and there’s dark smudges of more bruising peeking up over his turtleneck like violent hickies. One of his eyes is squinted shut, and his lip is split in two places, fresh stitching holding a cut together. One of his arms is in a brace, but not splinted. That’s three of them down, too injured for their own body to hold them together. Like cyborgs from the jokes she was making with Klaus.

It’s amazing, Vanya thinks, that Five held himself together at the end of the world for decades, and the three of us couldn’t manage a week without medical intervention.

It makes her  _ ache _ for him.

“Alright,” says Five. “Shall we? Our mission is simple - kill Harold Jenkins, identified by Vanya as a man going by Leonard Peabody. Most likely,” he clarifies at her sharp glance. “We’ll have to remove his eye to check the serial numbers on the prosthetic. At the same time, we’ll likely have to content with Hazel and Cha-Cha, who have been assigned to protect him.”

“That part still doesn’t make sense to me,” Luther says. “Why would they  _ want _ the end of the world?”

“They want a pay cheque and health benefits,” Five clarifies. “The Commission wants their version of the timeline to continue unhindered, and the apocalypse is the finishing climax, where it all ends,  _ que sera sera _ .”

“But if they can time travel, how are we supposed to fight that?” Luther presses, leaning forward. “Can’t they just… send someone in time to just before you kill Harold - Leonard -  _ whoever _ , and prevent it.”

“Undoing events is significantly more difficult than just making them happen properly in linear time,” Five says. “Especially since there’s a time traveller fucking them over,” he gestures to his own chest smugly. “The apocalypse isn’t a chain of events three hundred and sixty years in the making, gradual, with no single catalyst and no clear stop. It’s human made - I’ve  _ seen _ the algorithm, just briefly. And humans can be cut off - or change their minds - at any moment, and it’s difficult to correct that.”

“Besides,” Five says, straightening, “Once the timeline continues in a very human manner, the Commission will be busy recalibrating their algorithms and adjusting to events as they have never occurred before.”

“It has to be easier to go back and stop the apocalypse than leaving it be, though.” Allison says, scribbling furiously. “I cannot  _ believe _ this is a conversation we’re having.”

“Bureaucracies don’t react well to sudden change,” Five says “they’ve never had to plan for someone preventing the apocalypse before, and by the time they adjust, the event will be entrenched equations so complex they’ll be impossible to untangle. Rogue time travellers have broken the algorithm before. I  _ know _ we can do this.”

“I can’t fucking believe it either,” Diego mutters. “But whatever. Killing those two masked lunatics is fine by me.”

“The timeline has changed before?” Vanya asks. “Really?”

“It’s rare and irritating, but yes.” Five says. “The Commission will do a lot to prevent it from happening, because twisting linear time around a rogue agent - in this case, me - adds another permutation of complexity every one point six hours - basically, I’m making the math too complicated to fix.” he says at her dumbfounded look. 

“We kill three people and we’re done?” Klaus adds, leaning his head on the chair back. “That’s it?”

“That’s it for now.” Five confirms, “What happens _ after _ the death of Harold Jenkins will reveal our next move.”

“Great.” says Allison, running a hand through her hair. Her curls are going wild and uneven, falling around her shoulders in a rumpled curtain. “Okay. This is crazy, but okay.”

“I can handle this by myself, of course, if it becomes necessary, but you are all… a part of it, I suppose.” says Five. “Vanya and I have already handled the most difficult stretch - identifying the culprit. Now it’s just… killing the right people.”

“And you’re  _ sure _ Harold Jenkins is the answer?” Luther says. “If we kill an innocent man… “

“Harold Jenkins either  _ is _ , physically himself the catalyst, or acts upon someone or something else to cause the end of the world,” Five stresses impatiently. “His eye was in  _ your _ hand, Luther. You were trying to stop him in the original timeline.”

Luther nods, expression clearing like that’s good enough for him. Diego scoffs, sour and unimpressed.

“So we kill the crazies.” Diego says. “Done. When do we leave?”

“You’re not coming,” Five says. “I need you to watch Klaus and Vanya, they’re vulnerable right now.”

Diego puffs up. “Those two fucking  _ whackjobs _ are my business,” he hisses.

“Your  _ siblings _ are your business,” Five snarls in response.

And Vanya is -

She leans her dizzy head against the back of the couch. “Just leave it, Five.” she says, empty voice, empty head, empty, empty, long since bled out of that vital faith in her other siblings. 

“Vanya,” Five starts, “Until the Commission is dealt with, I don’t like the idea of you - and Klaus - being alone. Withdrawal leaves you vulnerable.”

“I’m the least useful sibling, anyway. No,” she corrects, she and Five solved almost all of the puzzles together. She’s useful, she’s just not “Wanted, I’m the - Diego doesn’t want to watch out for us, and I can’t trust him anyway. So.”

“Can’t  _ trust _ me?” Diego spits. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Vanya tips her head onto her shoulder, studying his dark eye. “Sure,” she says. “Trust. I mean, why would I? You’ve never once been there when I needed you. None of you were. I don’t see why that will change now. I’ve handled everything myself, and I’ve made it work.”

“Vanya,” Five says.

“Why should I trust you to keep me safe,” she adds, anger mixing with the nausea in her stomach. “Why should I trust you to  _ watch out for me _ , or  _ take care of me _ when I’m sick and  _ vulnerable _ , or whatever. You weren’t there.  _ None _ of you were there.”

“There for  _ what _ ?” Diego demands, exasperated. Like he can’t even imagine a world where Vanya had actually  _ suffered _ .

Her temper hits a boiling point, a high note, a solo played on a long, drawn out squeal of strings. 

“How about being evicted with a fractured spine?” she asks. “I  _ waited _ , Diego! I waited - the hospital called  _ so many times _ , I was there for  _ weeks _ . I had to learn how to walk - I had to - I was in  _ so much pain _ . I lost  _ everything _ , my hands were broken, they  _ amputated my limbs _ and I was alone and  _ nobody came _ .”

Vanya inhales, shaking. Her ears ring like a wet finger drawn around the rim of a wineglass.

“It hurt so much,” she says. “It hurt so much -  _ bilateral amputation _ , the crush injuries were so severe, there was no point in trying to salvage anything. I broke so many bones, and the bruises lingered for  _ months, _ and there’s only so long a hospital will keep you on morphine. I couldn’t afford my apartment. I could barely afford  _ food _ , I had to - to  _ beg _ the publisher for an advance so I could stay on my medication, once I’d given up on waiting for help. Because none of you came and  _ no _ , I can’t  _ trust any of you _ .”

Her face is wet.

“God,” she says. “ _ Fuck _ .”

“Vanya - “

“Don’t fucking talk to me,” she snaps, not even looking for who said it. “Five - Five can we go upstairs?”

“Yeah,” Five says. “I’ll help. The rest of you - just, sit here, and try not to break anything. Would you?”

“Vanya!”

“Piss off,” Five snaps, drawing her into his arms. Vanya doesn’t look at her siblings - doesn’t want to see their stupid faces, wants to be  _ alone, finally _ , because she’s  _ good at that _ . She knows how to be alone. She can survive it, has survived it, will survive it again.

Except -

Vanya leans her head on Five’s shoulder. Not just a shadow. He’s here, with her, solid and in person.

It hurts. This is what she wanted and it  _ hurts _ .

“I’m sorry,” she croaks. “I’m getting tears on your jacket.”

“Eh,” Five shrugs. “It’s fine, there’s ten identical ones in my closet.”

Vanya hums, unconvinced. She’s so  _ gross _ , and weak, and weepy. She’s still sweaty and shaking from withdrawal, and the rage that had consumed her just moments ago is boiling off and leaving her hollow.

“ _ I’m _ sorry, for what it’s worth.” Five adds. “I thought involving our siblings would make all of this - the apocalypse, mind - cleaner. But they upset you, which… wasn’t my intention.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not your fault either.” Five says. “You want to sleep more?”

“Yeah.”

It takes her a moment to parse the twisting hallways and the stairwells, to figure out where they’re going. Five takes her to  _ his _ room, instead of the guest room.

“Figured you’d prefer a clean bed,” he says at her raised brow. “Sorry, it’s a little small.”

“It’s fine,” Vanya says. This is  _ his bed _ , his room - all the writing on the walls in Five’s cramped little hand. The old equations she’s long since memorized without comprehension are fading, covered in fresh white chalk. “Five - I’m going to sweat over your sheets.”

“Eh,” Five shrugs again, lowering her onto the bed. “More blankets?”

“No, I’m good.” Vanya says, “Five - “

“It’s fine, Vanya.” Five flickers out, flickers back, He lays Delores at her side, the mannequin’s stiff, single arm across her chest like a hug. “Just - rest, okay? And - your carbamazepine.” Five pauses, looking conflicted. “Listen - “

“Tell me later,” Vanya says. “I meant what I said, Five. I trust you.”

_ You _ . 

Five meets her eyes. The creases in his forehead change, going from  _ upset _ to  _ determined _ .

“I promise,” he says. “I’ll make sure I deserve it.”

\---

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY


	9. Interlude: Nothing to Hear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! its been a while
> 
> long story short i have this condition that causes the liver to turn into a boot and it decided to try and start u know, tanning my organs. It's not good! it's going really bad! I have more medical tests tomorrow and I'm fucking terrified so you're getting this nice culmination of my sheer terror over the past couple of days.
> 
> Don't know when the next real chapter is coming, sorry. i want to write so bad you guys have no idea. hopefully posting this will smack my brain into working.
> 
> anyway TRIGGER WARNING TIME: this is nonlinear accounts of vanya's medical trauma. there's a lot of upsetting content in here - nothing particularily graphic is l i n g e r e d on per say but the theme of the piece is recovery horror, so there's that

“Do you hear that?”

Vanya swears, slamming the breaks. There’s a car a  _ fucking car _ , full of kids she can hear the music - rowdy pop songs - full of kids there’s no goddamn room to  _ move  _ the breaks -

_ S q u e a l _

White high beams cut apart the night and she can’t see, and there’s a breath, a beat, where she’s slowing the wheel is turning unbidden in her hands, jerking to the side and

The car careening down the one way hill smashes into her with a 

**_B A N G_ ** **.**

\---

There’s a special kind of pain where it doesn’t even hurt any more. It’s just the knowledge, that you’re hurting, and you could puke it up and rip out your eyeballs and peel off your skin and -

But it doesn’t hurt. That’s a good thing, right?

\---

“You’re lucky,” says a nurse. She’s not lucky. She’s so fucking furious she could chew the shattered glass of her windshield and scream like the jaws of life prying her fucking car apart.

\---

It got confusing after the accident. Hanging upside down, something dripping from her waist onto the underside of her chin.

She makes a low. Horrified noise. She can hear something grinding in her chest. She can hear pop music playing from someone else's radio. Hear the rattle in her breath. Hear her heartbeat, pounding in her chest, the blood in her veins sloshing along and spilling out her broken skin and shattered fucking legs.

“Do you hear that?”

Vanya can barely turn her head. It’s only just enough to catch the not-dead-girl in the passenger seat. She’s upside down, like Vanya is, but her soft white hair hangs towards the smashed-in footwell, like gravity’s gone reversed.

She’s pale. There’s no blood anywhere on her.

_ Or in her _ , Vanya thinks, a giggle strangling itself in her broken ribs. The little girl is so pale. Even her eyes are white.

The girl tips her head, jutting her chin forward. An eyebrow quirks, a prompt. “Do you?” she repeats. “Hear that?”

Hear what? Vanya can hear everything. She can even hear the crackle of electricity in her spine, and the grinding of every failed flex of her toes. 

Vanya inhales. Glass splinters tinkle against the roof of the car. Her windshield exploded. Windshields aren’t supposed to explode.

The little not-dead girl blinks. She turns to gaze solemnly out of the car, towards the other wreck. The car full of kids. Their radio is still on. 

Vanya can hear her heartbeat. She doesn’t hear anyone else’s. Not the other vehicle. Not the ghost or zombie sitting next to her.

The kid blinks.

“N- n,” Vanya starts, choking on the swell of blood and teeth fragments. Her tongue is three sizes too big for her jaw, “N- n- no o- o- no one’s c- c- com- m- ming.”

“That’s right,” the girl says, like Mom when Vanya got the trig before Diego or Five. “You’re right. There’s nothing to hear. Because no one is coming.”

\---

The wheelchair is rickety and unstable, all cracked plastic and scuffed aluminium and it is the most beautiful thing Vanya has ever seen. She can move, with her hands, with the chair's wheels. She’ll be able to move on her own again.

\---

Five would probably know the equations, Vanya thinks blearily, to tell how much blood she’s lost. Hanging like this is probably aggravating the cuts she can feel on her face. Head wounds always bleed the most. She can see it collecting in a sticky black pool below her, her hair dragging against the surface. There’s light reflected in it. From her eyes. From the ghost.

But, Vanya reminds herself, blinking at the two bright spots in her slowly-growing mirror, her legs. Her legs are crushed. That would keep most of her blood inside, unable to escape the pinched off damage, the pulverized nature of her lower body.

She wants to scream, distantly, in the way she wants to go home and piss in her Father’s shoes. Not enough energy, not enough air. But nice to think about.

\---

“What’s your name?”

“Seven.” she blinks. “No, wait. Let me think.”

\---

Five’s ghost stares at her from the plastic chairs by her bed. The kind of chair that every hospital has, meant to ruin your back so you stay and spend more money on fixing it.

Not that Vanya needs a reason to stay. She can’t even use the toilet by herself.

Five’s ghost keeps visiting her. It’s all wrong. All smeary at the corners. He’s exactly like she remembers, except he’s bruised, and bloodied, and he’s got his hands folded under his chin while he stares at her like the whole entire world has ended and he’s the only one left to mourn at her graveside.

He looks like the child she remembers, except she can’t really remember him right now. It hurts too much. The morphine makes it. Softer. Quieter. But the pain still whispers up her mostly-intact backbone.

_ Coward _ , she chastises herself, poking at the missing spot a tooth should be with her tongue.

\---

The ghost waits with her as headlights pass overhead. The ghost waits with her, when a clamor occurs. People gawking over the edge of the hill. Looking at the underbelly of her smashed up car.

“They’re not coming for you,” the ghost reminds her. “No one will come for you.”

\---

“Did it hurt this much,” Vanya rasps, staring up at the beige ceiling. Cowards way out. She doesn’t want to watch Five’s ghost sneer at her like she deserves. “When you died?”

He chuffs. His shiny little loafers squeak on the linoleum. “It didn’t hurt at all.” 

She hums. Closes her eyes. There’s no darkness to be found there, not really. There’s no darkness for her anywhere anymore. Just - reflections, like her eyes in her own blood as she died in her car.

\---

Her new legs are ugly. They pinch. They ache. Her thigh swells. Her single knee feels sweaty and cramped.

It’s not a triumphant thing. It’s the ugly wetness, the necessary agony of being pulled from a wreck. To new beginnings.

\---

“Do you -” she can  _ hear _ Five pause. Reconsider. Think things through. “Do you need me to fetch a nurse?”

“ _ Hah _ ,” her jaw drops open. It’s not a laugh. “No. I’m fine.”

“If it hurts -”

“Five,” she opens her eyes. She can’t bear to look at him. “I’m okay.”

“You’re not,” he disagrees. Perfectly polite. Civil, like Five never was. “Vanya, you haven’t been fine in a very long time.”

\---

The morphine muffles the anger. Dulls it. Makes it sweet, like cinnamon syrup. 

Vanya understands why Klaus was never able to get clean, now. It’s so hard to be afraid, like this. Angry, like this. Even the pain, chasing her, churning her stomach, is as gentle as the brush of her ghosts against her splinted fingers. Poor, dead little Five the only of her siblings to hold her hand.

She is so very alone. But the morphine presses down on her like a blanket, like snowfall, like the crush of her seatbelt, and she is not lonely.

\---

Vanya glares balefully at the parallel bars. She wants to be able to stand, but she doesn’t like that it’s some kind of horrific hurdle, or punishment. She doesn’t like that it aches. She doesn’t like that these fucking bars are all she gets to complete an impossible task, one that used to be something she could simply  _ do _ .

She’s so fucking  _ weak _ .

\---

“How come Ben doesn’t visit?” she asks. She doesn’t have any ghosts today. If the nurses hear her, she’s going to get in trouble. They’re going to hum, and play with her I.V. line. They’ll make her speak to a psychologist, again, like the one she spoke to about her prescription, who probably talked to her father even though she said not too. “I miss him.”

(if they spoke to her father, he still hasn’t come and Vanya knows the isolation is better than the judgement, but oh, there’s something to be said for such actively malicious apathy)

She blinks. There’s tears she doesn’t remember shedding on her eyelashes. 

“Did it hurt like this for him,” she asks the tear. “Or Five, the one that isn’t in my head. Did they hurt?”

It’s not like she was even doing anything special. She was just driving. Like she did every day. Just driving.

And she doesn’t even have the blessing-curse-oh-god- _ no _ for that to be the end of it.

\---

“Can you hear me?”

\---

When she purchases a new phone for the new apartment she cannot afford, she gets a new phone number. 

It’s fine. No one from before is going to call her. 

The rotary on it is nice and smooth, and it clacks loudly and with purpose as she dials. She likes the clicking. Likes on her phone, likes it on her typewriter. Likes it on her cane, when the joint is tightened properly, and she can give the cement a good solid  _ thock _ .

Making noise. Making purpose.

Nothing like a 

**_B A N G._ **

\---

Five and Six and Seven fell like dominos, one after another.

\---

They take her photo. She looks like the little ghost girl, all in black and white. Empty eyes, bruised and exhausted looking. She puts her name down as  _ Vanya Hargreaves _ , because that  _ is _ her name. Extra Ordinary. Vanya Hargreaves. Not even good at dying.

And yet, it feels like a pseudonym. A pen-name. A little lie, to hide the real her, even though it’s a book about the real her.

Or the real her she was, before she died in that fucking car, and stood up again on new legs. Reborn, unborn. Half as holy, twice as raw.

\---

You’re lucky, Number Seven.

\--- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh also! elliot came out! super fucking cool! i'm a trans author and while tff won't involve trans!vanya everything else i write will probably involve trans!vanya because i want to uwu


	10. Getting Clean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is like, a quarter of a real chapter and i'm sorry about that but if i tried to sit on it theres a high chance id be like 'i need to re do the whole thing' and then no one would get anything so! you're getting it now, please enjoy, i'm going to try and get the rest of the damn thing up soon
> 
> everyone say thank you to @fiveyaaas for helping me get my words in order
> 
> (also thank you all for the well wishes it... really meant a lot to me. i'm not doing great and i have to go back in for more tests but it looks like i'm cancer free for now which was the biggest worry i had)

When Vanya wakes up, the house feels oddly empty in a way she knows that it logically isn’t. The Hargreeves manor is never empty. It’s always  _ lonely _ , mind, but never empty.

_ His heartbeat is missing, _ she thinks for no apparent reason at all, scratching crust out of her eyes. There’s drool cooling on her chin. Her knee  _ itches _ . The knee she doesn’t have doesn’t feel like anything at all, for once.

And the manor is empty. Except it’s  _ not _ . What a stupid thing to think.

“Five?” she calls tentatively, clearing her throat of sleep. She pats at Delores’s smooth skull. She glances around Five’s room, at the equations that make her head swim and the drawer cluttered with ancient, dusty toys.

Five doesn’t appear.

_ I need to take my pills _ , Vanya thinks, slapping at the wheelchair left by the nightstand. She pauses, shakes her head.

No. No, she’s not taking her pills. Not until Five is… back. And then they can talk. He’d been afraid, hadn’t he? Five who was from a world she still can’t believe in, an empty one. A dead one.

And he’d been afraid of her pills, so she can’t take them. That’s all there is to it.

Because she trusts him.

She blinks again, patting Delores absently. Has Five gone to confront… to kill Leonard? And she didn’t even wish him luck? She just… slept right through it?

_ Stupid _ , Vanya thinks, and lifts her labouriously into her chair. Fuck, her elbows hurt. Everything sort of aches, and she can smell herself. Sweat and fever-sick.

The urge to find her pills rises in her throat again. It’d make all this stop. She’d feel better, be stronger and she could -

_ Do what? _ she asks herself,  _ Help Five? You can’t even help yourself _ .

Vanya pats her good thigh. Some partner she is. She’s almost trapped in Five’s room, since it’s just guest rooms and a bathroom on this floor. She’d hated the stairs when she had her legs - now she’s recovering (again) and one’s been twisted to scrap metal.

“C’mon,” she says, picking Delores up and tucking the mannequin against her chest. “I need to piss. Girls go use the bathroom together, right?”

She pees. It’s notable only for its difficulty, since this bathroom was designed for able-bodied kids.  _ Super-powered _ kids. Not for her, and her weak and feverish arms, her missing legs.

She washes her hands, and then brings water to her mouth in her palms and slurps at it messily to clean the taste of withdrawal and sleep out of it. Water spills down her front - she drops Delores onto the tile and then crushes her fingers with her wheel when she shifts in alarm.   
  


“Shit!”

Delores doesn’t seem to hold it against her. Vanya still fishes out a box of bandaids with little cartoon characters on them from under the sink to wrap her hand.

“Sorry,” Vanya says again, dropping a kiss against the bandaid. “My fault.”

Delores, of course, says nothing. But that’s fine by Vanya, who wouldn’t want to talk to the person she saw in the mirror either.

She’s so pale and bruised she looks like a ghost.  _ Her _ ghost. But with dark eyes and dark hair.

The door to the bathroom creaks open.

“There you are!” Klaus cheers. Vanya squints at him in the harsh bathroom light, scowling.

“I could have been peeing,” Vanya snaps. “What the hell, why are you coming into the  _ bathroom _ ?”

“Because I am  _ desperate _ , Vanya!” he cries, stepping into the bathroom and shutting the door. “Diego has been on the warpath, and Luther’s been sulking since Five and Allison went to go prevent the apocalypse by murdering some guy, I don’t know. Why did they not take the boys with them - don’t answer that I don’t care.”

Klaus slides to the bathroom floor dramatically, throwing a hand over his face. He looks  _ awful _ . He looks like he’s detoxing from more drugs on higher doses than she’s even thought about, even with a fractured spine.

Another ghost. But Vanya never saw him at her bedside, so she holds Delores closer to her chest and sneers.

“Five certainly didn’t help matters,” Klaus is continuing, his voice is so  _ high _ and  _ grating _ , it rings in Vanya’s ears, it rattles around her skull, “He was  _ so mad _ . I thought Allison was going to have to rumour him to let her come on the murder brigade,”

_ Loud _ , Vanya thinks. Is this a withdrawal symptom? He fucking  _ echoes _ , and it hurts, and it -

“I mean _ really _ , does Five think that we care he’s going to be killing some nobody? Not really - well, except Luther but that’s why they left him, right? And I was thinking -”

The mirror  _ cracks _ on a sudden spiderweb. Klaus and Vanya both flinch, glass striking the tile with the smallest little  _ ting _ .

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Klaus curses, brushing glass splinters out of his hair. “Fuck - careful Vanya. Did anyone see what just happened? No? Yes? What?”

“It looks like something punched it,” Vanya says absently, staring at the line of the shattered glass. The epicenter of the break is maybe as big as a fingerprint, along the edge of the mirror closest to her. “Dad’s going to be -”

“He’s dead, Vanya.”

Vanya’s mouth snaps shut with an audible  _ click _ . Right.

“Right,” she says, ignoring the way Klaus is staring at her. “Of course.”

A silence settles between them, heavy. Vanya’s ears are ringing.

“Well,” Klaus says finally, straightening. His bare feet push shards of glass along the tile. “We always knew the manor was haunted, anyway. Right? Right.”

“You’re the expert,” she says, with a little wobbly smile. Klaus returns it with a grin that bares all his teeth.

“Damn right I am!  _ And _ , I’m also the expert on getting clean! Therefore, I say neither of us has had enough junk food yet today.”

“I don’t even know what time it is -”

“Lets order pizza,” Klaus says, clambering awkwardly to his feet. He doesn’t even flinch when he steps on the glass and blood starts getting all over the tiles. “And milkshakes. And garlic bread. Maybe something will get rid of the fucking  _ shakes _ .”

“Maybe we should bandage your foot and clean the glass out of it,” Vanya suggests. Klaus, predictably, ignores her.

\---

She shuts herself up in Five’s room. Klaus promises to bring food up for her, after a fifteen-second argument that mostly consisted of her pointing out there was no way he was going to be able to carry her down the stairs.

His gaze had dropped to her sweatpants, folded under her bum, and stayed there. Then he’d promised to bring her food, even though eating anywhere but the dining room was punishable by death - or rather, suicide runs until you vomited up whatever it was you had eaten for the entire day.

Because  _ that _ was a just and fair punishment.

She dozes on Five’s bed while she waits. It smells like laundry detergent and Vanya’s sweat. She’s so nauseated that she might yartz if she sits up, let alone tries to eat whatever cheap hangover meal Klaus is convinced will ease the withdrawal, but she’s also so hungry her waist feels like it’s caught in a vice.

She wants her pills. She wants Five to be back, so she can snot up on his shoulder even though it’s disgusting, because she doesn’t want to be alone. She wants - when she was in her apartment, on the floor crying, and he held her. That’s what she wants.

  
But Five is doing things that are actually important, so she clutches Delores to her chest and shivers alone instead.

There’s a creak of the door, and a slice of light comes from the hallway, before it closes again. Silent breathing.

Vanya -

“Klaus?” she grumbles into her pillow, wiping sweat off her forehead and turning over as best she can. “Is it here already?”

It’s not Klaus.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol yeah that was why i cut the chapter here


End file.
